Various vertical drain methods

Soft ground improvement technology

When load such as an embankment acts on soft ground, the ground settles. The time required for the completion of settlement is proportional to the square of drainage distance of the excess pore water in the ground. Drain methods are ground improvement methods which facilitate consolidation settlement and improvement of ground strength by shortening the drainage distance. Examples of such methods are the Sand Drain Method utilizing sand in the drain, the Geo-Drain Method, which uses plastic materials instead of sand, and the Eco-Geo-Drain Method, which uses bio-degradable plastic materials. The SPD (Suction Plastic Drain) Method is another drain method which uses the atmospheric pressure instead of preload (embankment) to drain water from the soft ground forcibly.

Features

Geo-Drain Method

Use of factory-manufactured, excellent-quality drain materials to facilitate consolidation.
Use of plastic drains for the horizontal drains eliminates the need for good-quality sand and can improve consolidation delay compared with sand-mats.
The drain materials have excellent follow-up capability to the change in ground level.

Eco-Geo-Drain Method

Use of bio-degradable plastic materials makes the Eco-Geo-Drain Method a method friendly to the earth environment.
Eco-Geo-Drain Method dose not use sand mats, but uses plastic horizontal drains.
Eco-Geo-Drain Method is easily executed and poses no problem to construction work after the ground has been improved.
In addition, by reducing the width of the drain, the amount of material can be reduced by 60%. Because of this reduction, the work can be executed with smaller and lighter construction machinery leading to reduction of CO2 emission. (Small-aperture Eco-Geo-Drain Method)

SPD Method

SPD Method adopts an execution system compatible with the target ground and the surrounding environment.
Use of excellent-quality drain materials to facilitate consolidation.
The execution is tightly controlled with an original execution management system including automated measurement.
Compared with the conventional drain method with preload embankment, reduction in work period and construction costs is expected.