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ABSTRACT

Expansive soils occur all over the world and in India too where these are known as black cotton
soils they cover nearly 1/3 the area of the country. Expansive soils are synonymous to
problematic soils in civil engineering constructions because of their swelling characteristics.
Expansive soils provides civil engineers with a formidable challenge as the soils heave or swell
in the presence of moisture and shrink or settle on drying which means heaving in the monsoon
and settling in the summer. This cyclic change in volume is extremely difficult to deal with.

Recognizing the gravity of this problem a lot of attention has been drawn towards studying the
nature of such soils in relation to their swelling aspects under different conditions. This paper
also provides an insight into the various ground improvement techniques and focuses on the
granular pile technique, a very recent technique which overcomes the disadvantages of various
other ground improvement methods.

The paper reports the results of comprehensive experimental investigations using granular pile
techniques to control the swelling characteristics of black cotton soil. This paper discusses the
mechanisms of alleviating the swell characteristics of black cotton soils due to the inclusion of
stone columns. This facilitates the use of combination of black cotton soil with granular piles for
sustainable reduction in its heave.