Designing a piled embankment with geosynthetics based on the curved and variable soil arch

초록

Current design guidelines for piled embankment in Europe assume a fixed soil arch in circular or spherical shape without specific consideration on variabilities in material properties and geometric configuration. Herein, we suggest a new design method of the piled embankment including the state-dependent shape of soil arch that can consider possible variabilities. The new method employs the shape of the soil arch in ellipsoidal or prolate shape, which enables the method adapt various likely conditions in the construction of the piled embankment. The experimental data obtained from small-scale model tests were compared with the current and new methods.