Settlement of Footing on Compacted Ash Bed

Compacted coal ash fills exhibit capillary stress due to contact moisture and preconsolidation stress due to the compaction process. As such, the conventional methods of estimating settlement of footing on cohesionless soils based on penetration tests become inapplicable in the case of footings on coal ash fills, although coal ash is also a cohesionless material. Therefore, a method of estimating load-settlement behavior of footings resting on coal ash fills accounting for the effect of capillary and preconsolidation stresses is presented here. The proposed method has been validated by conducting plate load tests on laboratory prepared compacted ash beds and comparing the observed and predicted load-settlement behavior. Overestimation of settlement greater than 100% occurs when capillary and preconsolidation stresses are not accounted for, as is the case in conventional methods.