Dealing with enhanced expansive soils in foundation construction: features of modeling and designing

This paper discusses the issues of modeling swelling soils and their implementation in the finite element program. The main emphasis is on the choice of a mathematical model that best allows you to make correct and accurate calculations in such complex soils as swelling. Based on the results of the comparison, the most suitable model was implemented in the Plaxis 2D program. Despite the wide prevalence of swelling soils, design methods have many differences and are not reduced to a single standard that allows you to reduce costs at the design stage. The complexity and variety of conditions for constructing a foundation on swelling soils force engineers to resort to solving each problem separately. New global trends and conditions are changing the established order of things even in construction. The new approach outlined in the study will help to solve this problem with greater ease and accuracy. Based on laboratory data, modeling of foundations on improved expansive soils with lime and polypropylene fiber, allowed us to come to conclusions that significantly improve the behavior of foundations on swelling soils and simplify their design, which opens the possibility of using the research results and the calculation model in engineering practice.