Application of Soil Improvement Techniques

Dr Philipp Schober

Advancing urbanization and industrialization, especially in the conurbations, means that more and more structures – including industry and infrastructure – must be built in areas with difficult subsoil or on man-made reclaimed land. Ground improvement methods that are used to reinforce or compact/consolidate the subsoil are efficient and economical methods to reduce settlement, mitigate the risk of liquefaction and increase the shear strength of the treated soil as well as enhance embankment stability. Depending on the soil conditions as well as on the project specific characteristics such as settlement criteria and loads, the most efficient soil improvement method is selected. Advanced design, e.g. 2D and 3D-Finite Element analysis, is further applied to provide technically and commercially optimized soil improvement solutions. Over the past decades, BAUER has designed and successfully executed many soil improvement projects all over the world, including the compaction of reclaimed land, reinforcement of tailing dams and improvement of the subsoil for various infrastructure and industrial projects. With the help of reference projects, different solutions, and applications of soil improvement techniques as well as possible design solutions will be elucidated during the presentation.

About the speaker

Dr Philipp Schober Head of Soil Improvement, BAUER Spezialtiefbau GmbH, Asia Pacific

Dr.-Ing. Philipp Schober is the Head of Soil Improvement for BAUER Spezialtiefbau GmbH in the Asia Pacific Region. Philipp has over 10 years’ experience as geotechnical engineer, including research work and lectures at the University of the German Federal Armed Forces in Munich. During the past 6 years working with BAUER he has focused on soil improvement solutions. He has been responsible for the tender, design, execution and technical support of various soil improvement projects in different parts of the globe, including mayor infrastructure and industrial projects such as the Moin Container Terminal in Costa Rica and the Palayan Geothermal Power Plant in the Philippines. The provided foundation solutions involve the improvement of the subsoil by reinforcement with stone columns, deep soil mixing and rigid inclusions as well as sand compaction with different compaction techniques.

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