Study of soil types and characteristics at Marj Ben Amer Area in Jenin cityand the Proposed Types of foundations and soil improvement techniques

  For any project, choosing the appropriate type of soil improvement technique and foundation is one of the main aspects that must be taken into consideration during the process of idea generating, planning and cost estimating for any project.

 Marj Ibn Amer area in Jenin city suffers from many problems in it’s soil, and we know that the most of Marj Ibn Amer lands are clayey and weak soil. Which mean that we can’t rely on it’s bearing capacity when designing for most types of structures.

 So we have to study this area in term of it’s soil characteristics and classification in order to come out with a most applicable recommendation of soil improvement and best type of foundations.

Objectives of Project

1)      Studying the soil characteristics and classification of Marj Ibn Amer area.

2)      Recommendations for the best type of foundation and soil improvement to be implemented in the land parcel depending on the type of structure.

3)      Prepare a map which divides the land parcels of this area basing on it’s soil classification depending on the available data by using Geographic Information Systems software (GIS).

Methodology

1) Data collection:

 Proper data in this project was collected from the private laboratories that made soil tests in this area. For making checks for the collected data, some soil samples taken from the study area and tested in Soil Engineering Laboratory at An-Najah National University.

2) Classified soil characteristics:

Applied the soil engineering principles and criteria of studying the soil properties from the collected soil tests reports.

3) Analyzing data

 By using the computer software ArcGIS 10.0, the bore holes points locations was located on an aerial photos for the studied area, and joined each bore hole to each characteristics at selected depths, these depths was at 1 meter below the surface, and 2.5 meter below the surface. Then a zoned maps for each soil property was extracted. By using a tool from ArcGIS called Inverse Weighted Distance IDW.

4) Analyzing results

Classifying the zoned maps in term of the most suitable soil improvement and type of foundation.