• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.579-593
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• 2017

Geosynthetic reinforced soil retaining walls can be employed as railway embankments to carry large static and dynamic train loads, but very few studies can be found in the literature that investigate their dynamic behavior under simulated wheel loading. A large-scale dynamic test on a reinforced soil railway embankment was therefore carried out. The model embankment was 1.65 meter high and designed to have a soilbag facing. It was reinforced with HDPE geogrid layers at a vertical spacing of 0.3 m and a length of 2 m. The dynamic test consisted of 1.2 million cycles of harmonic dynamic loading with three different load levels and four different exciting frequencies. Before the dynamic loading test, a static test was also carried out to understand the general behavior of the embankment behavior. The study indicated the importance of loading frequency on the dynamic response of reinforced soil railway embankment. It also showed that toe resistance played a significant role in the dynamic behavior of the embankment. Some limitations of the test were also discussed.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2008.11b
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• pp.918-927
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• 2008

The problems associated with constructing high-speed concrete track embankments over soft compressible soil has lead to the development and/or extensive use of many of the ground improvement techniques used today. Drains, surcharge loading, and geosynthetic reinforcement, have all been used to solve the settlement and embankment stability issues associated with construction on soft soils. Geosynthetic-reinforced embankment supporting piles method consist of vertical columns that are designed to transfer the load of the embankment through the soft compressible soil layer to a firm foundation and one or more layers of geosynthetic reinforcement placed between the top of the columns and the bottom of the embankment. In the paper, the evaluations of a seismic performance of geosynthetic-reinforced embankment piles for a ultra soft ground during earthquake were studied. the equivalent linear analysis was performed by SHAKE for soft ground. A seismic performance analysis of Piles was performed by GROUP PILE and PLAXIS for geosynthetic-reinforced embankment piles. Guidelines is required for pile displacement during earthquake. Conclusions of the studies come up with a idea for soil stiffness, conditions of pile cap, pile length and span.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2008.11b
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• pp.905-917
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• 2008

Road or Railway construction over soft ground is needed to be considered on secondary consolidation which will be caused differential settlement, lack of transport serviceability, higher maintenance cost. Especially for the railway construction in the second phase of Gyung-Bu or Ho-Nam high speed railway, concrete slab track has been adapted as a safe and cost effective geotechnical solution. In this case controlling the total settlement under the tolerance is essential. And pile supported geogrid reinforced construction method is suggested as a solution for the problem of the traditional method on soft soil treatments. Pile supported geogrid reinforced construction method consists of piles that are designed to transfer the load of the embankment through the compressible soil layer to a firm foundation. The load from the embankment must be effectively transferred to the piles to prevent punching of the piles through the embankment fill creating differential settlement at the surface of the embankment. The arrangement of the piles can create soil arching to carry the load of embankment to the piles. In order to minimize the number of piles geogrid reinforced pile supported construction method is being used on a regular basis. This method consists of one or more layers of geogrid reinforcement placed between the top of the piles and the bottom of the embankment. This paper presents several methods of pile supported geogrid reinforced construction and calculation results from the several methods and comparison of them.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.507-534
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• 2015

The present work investigates the behavior of the embankment models resting on soft soil reinforced with ordinary and stone columns encased with geogrid. Model tests were performed with different spacing distances between stone columns and two lengths to diameter ratios (L/d) of the stone columns, in addition to different embankment heights. A total number of 42 model tests were carried out on a soil with undrianed shear strength $${\sim_\sim}10kPa$$. The models consist of stone columns embankment at s/d equal to 2.5, 3 and 4 with L/d ratio equal 5 and 8. Three embankment heights; 200 mm, 250 mm and 300 mm were tested for both tests of ordinary (OSC) and geogrid encased stone columns (ESC). Three earth pressure cells were used to measure directly the vertical effective stress on column at the top of the middle stone column under the center line of embankment and on the edge stone column for all models while the third cell was placed at the base of embankment between two columns to measure the vertical effective stress in soft soil directly. The performance of stone columns embankments relies upon the ability of the granular embankment material to arch over the 'gaps' between the stone columns spacing. The results showed that the ratio of the embankment height to the clear spacing between columns (h/s-d) is a key parameter. It is found that (h/s-d)<1.2 and 1.4 for OSC and ESC, respectively; (h is the embankment height, s is the spacing between columns and d is the diameter of stone columns), no effect of arching is pronounced, the settlement at the surface of the embankment is very large, and the stress acting on the subsoil is virtually unmodified from the nominal overburden stress. When $(h/s-d){\geq}2.2$ for OSC and ESC respectively, full arching will occur and minimum stress on subsoil between stone columns will act, so the range of critical embankment height will be 1.2 (h/sd) to 2.2 (h/s-d) for both OSC and ESC models.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
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• v.9 no.6 s.37
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• pp.753-760
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• 2006

This paper presents the procedure and results of the numerical modelling that was carried out to investigate the stability of reinforced soil slopes under dynamic railway load. The two-dimensional explicit dynamic finite element method (ABACUS) was used to carry out the numerical analyses. To simulate the railway load, the top surface of the embankment was excited by the uniform distributed load whose frequency and magnitude was estimated by the measured railway acceleration during train passing. The embankment displacements and geogrid axial forces were analyzed to evaluate the stability of reinforced soil slopes under the dynamic train load.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.2C
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• pp.133-141
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• 2008

Theoretical analysis are developed to estimate the load transfer by soil arching in geosynthetic-reinforced and pile-supported(GRPS) embankment systems. According to the results of analyses, the efficiency of embankment pile systems increases when the geosynthetics are installed with piles. Especially the increment of efficiency is more remarkable in the low embankment height, where soil arching can not be fully developed. The factors affecting the load transfer in GRPS embankment systems are the pile spacing, the height and properties of embankments, and the strength of geosynthetics. The efficiency decreases with increasing the pile spacing, while it increases with the height and internal friction angle of embankment fills, and the strength of geosynthetics. These results of analyses show the proposed analysis method is resonable to estimate the soil arching in GRPS embankment systems.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.353-367
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• 2023

The construction of a protective embankment is a suitable strategy to stop and control high-energy rock blocks' impacts during the rockfall phenomenon. In this paper, based on the discrete element numerical method, by modeling an existing embankment reinforced with geogrid, its stability status under the impact of a rock block with two types of low and high kinetic energy, namely 2402 and 4180 kJ, respectively, has been investigated. The modeling results show that the use of geogrid has caused the displacement in the front and back of the embankment to decrease by more than 30%. In this case, the reinforced embankment has stopped the rock block earlier. The displacements obtained from the DEM modeling are compared with the displacements measured from an actual practical experiment to evaluate the results' validity. Comparison between the results shows that the displacement values are close together, while the maximum percentage error in previous studies by an analytical method and the finite element method was 76.4% and 36.6%, respectively. Therefore, the obtained results indicate the discrete numerical method's high ability compared to other numerical and analytical methods to simulate and design the geogrid-reinforced soil embankment under natural disasters such as rockfall with a minor error.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.5-16
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• 2016

In the geosynthetics-reinforced piled embankment the effects of soft soil stiffness, friction angle of the fill material, tensile stiffness of geosynthetics, and height of the embankment on the load transfer soil arch measured by the critical height were numerically investigated. Results from parametric studies show that the magnitude of the soft soil stiffness is the most influencing factor on the critical height. The contour charts of the critical height with respect to the combination of the soft soil stiffness and other parameters were presented. The charts show that the critical height sensitively varies with the combination of the soft soil stiffness and the height of embankment. Under the sufficiently low stiffness of soft soil, the critical height sensitively varies with the friction angle of the fill material. Once the geosynthetic layer is placed, however, the magnitude of the tensile stiffness of the geosynthetic layer hardly influences the critical height of the soil arch.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.313-329
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• 2013

Vetiver grass (Vetiveria zizanioides) is being effectively used in many countries to protect embankment and slopes for their characteristics of having long and strong roots. In this paper, in-situ shear tests of the ground with the vetiver roots have been conducted to investigate the stabilization properties corresponding to the embankment slopes. Numerical analyses have also been performed with the finite element method using elastoplastic subloading $t_{ij}$ model, which can simulate typical soil behavior. It is revealed from field tests that the shear strength of vetiver rooted soil matrix is higher than that of the unreinforced soil. The reinforced soil with vetiver root also shows ductile behavior. The numerical analyses capture well the results of the in-situ shear tests. Effectiveness of vetiver root in geotechnical structures-strip foundation and embankment slope has been evaluated by finite element analyses. It is found that the reinforcement with vetiver root enhances the bearing capacities of the grounds and stabilizes the embankment slopes.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.9-18
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• 2010

A series of model tests were performed to investigate the load transfer by soil arching in geosynthetic-reinforced and pile-supported(GRPS) embankment systems. In the model tests, model piles with isolated cap were inserted in the model container and geosynthetics was laid on the pile caps below sand fills. The settlement of soft ground was simulated by rubber form. The loads acting on pile caps and the tensile strain of geosynthetics were monitored by data logging system. At the given interval ratio of pile caps, the efficiency in GRPS embankment systems increased with increasing the height of embankment fills, then gradually converged at constant value. Also, at the given height of embankment fills, the efficiency decreased with increasing the pile spacing. The embankment loads transferred on pile cap by soil arching increased when the geosynthetics installed with piles. This illustrated that reinforcing with the geosynthetics have a good effect to restraint the movement of surrounding soft grounds. The load transfer in GRPS embankment systems was affected by the interval ratio, height of fills, properties of grounds and tensile stiffness and so on.