Analysis of a Large-Scale Physical Model of Geosynthetic-Reinforced Piled Embankment and Analytical Design Methods

Abstract

The piled embankment represents one of the solutions for the realization of a soil body on a compressible subsoil where extended settlement or insufficient stability threatens the serviceability of related structures. Widely adopted analytical design procedures were analyzed: Marston’s formula and Hewlett and Randolph method contained in the British standard BS 8006-1, the German regulation EBGEO and the Dutch regulation CUR 226. Using these recommendations, the theoretical values of the individual parts of the load acting in the embankment and, subsequently, the values of the axial strain or tensile forces in the reinforcement were determined and compared with experimental data obtained from the tests in the large-scale physical model. For the presented case, without subsoil support, CUR 226 with the inverse load, which is recommended in the case of subsoil with low bearing capacity, shows better coincidence with the measured data. Overall, EBGEO and CUR 226 can be considered to be close to the real behavior of the piled embankment. Because of the frequent utilization of geosynthetic reinforcement and possible changes of subsoil parameters during the service life of the piled embankment, a rheological process of its elements should be investigated during the design process.

3D Numerical Modeling of Geosynthetics for Soil Reinforcement: A Bibliometric Analysis and Literature Review

“…For example, one study [2] showed that the analytic design of geosynthetic-reinforced soil walls using the North American standard was extremely conservative, underestimating the geosynthetic performance by 50%. A more recent comparison [3] of analytical methods provided by technical standards also showed considerable overestimation of the loads acting on the reinforcement.…”

Finite Element Analysis on the Behavior of Solidified Soil Embankments on Piled Foundations under Dynamic Traffic Loads

“…The soil arching phenomenon in a pile-supported granular embankment was demonstrated based on the two-dimensional finite element modeling approach [20]. The large-scale physical model was also utilized to simulate the behavior of the piled embankment reinforced with the basal geosynthetic reinforcement [21]. However, in the literature review, most studies focus on the load transfer mechanism for coarse materials or cohesionless soils, and the effects of cohesion of embankment soils were not considered in pile-supported embankments [22,23].…”