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We were approached by a developer to check the necessity of introducing stone columns under internal roads in one of their projects where they were only building infrastructure and roads. After studying the soil investigation report we found that there was homogeneous layer of soft to medium clayey silt at water table level, 3m below the natural ground level on which the road is to be constructed. The site was flat and so were the roads.
We highlighted to the developer that the risk of settlement in silts and clays is high when it is subjected to sustained load. In this case, the sustained load was only the weight of the asphalt in case of roads and nothing in case of infra which was buried underground. We investigated the main road outside the plot, which was on a similar soil and found out that nothing was provided underneath. After that we called in the geotechnical engineer and requested him to do a consolidation test and reconsider his requirements, after which his recommendation for stone columns was deleted, resulting in considerable cost and time saving.