Soil improvement techniques in design of coastal structures

Coastal structures are frequently situated in places with erratic and very compressible soil strata, such as delta regions, or in places built up with fill of varying quality. Therefore, there is often a need of soil improvement to avoid detrimental differential settlement of structures erected. In this lecture some methods of soil improvement particularly suitable for solving the problems appearing in connection with coastal structures will be discussed, namely soil improvement by means of vertical drains, heavy tamping and explosives. Other, less-frequently used methods, such as electroosmosis, lime columns and sand piles (including those created by means of deep vibrations), will not be treated although they doubtless are of great interest and could be considered as belonging to this subject.