Evaluation of soil arching effect due to partially mobilized shear stress in piled and geosynthetic-reinforced embankment

Abstract

In piled and geosynthetic-reinforced (PGR) embankment, the arching behavior determines the overburden load on piles and subsoils. Placement of geosynthetic is effective in reducing the relative displacement between pile and subsoil. When the mobilized shear stress is less than the shear strength, partially developed arching will occur. Consequently, existing analytical methods, adopting the ultimate shear strength failure criterion, need to be improved. This study developed a simplified 2D analytical method, which is based on the developing arching effect, to evaluate the load redistribution of the PGR embankment. Then, the influences of embankment height and internal friction angle, subsoil depth, ratio of pile cap width to pile clear spacing (RPC) and geosynthetic tensile stiffness on the critical height ratio, stress concentration ratio, soil arching ratio, geosynthetic tension and axial strain were investigated. This study suggests that a RPC of 1:1.0 and a one-way of single-layer geosynthetic tensile stiffness of 2000 kN/m should be considered as the sensitivity thresholds for the PGR embankment.