Visualization of soil arching in flexible piled embankments

Piled embankments rely on soil arching, but, when geogrid reinforcements are used, membrane action within the reinforcement contributes to load distribution. The arching of soil in unreinforced and reinforced piled embankments is evaluated in this study. A small-scale test apparatus is used to model the settlement up to 5 mm in an embankment with four pile elements. Visual inspection of the soil settlement and soil-reinforcement interaction is important to explain the mechanism of arching. In this study, X-ray Computed Tomography (CT) method was used as a non-destructive technique. The arching of soil between the piles was observed in the case of rigid piles and in the case of flexible piles with grid type of reinforcement. The load carrying capacity increased up to 33% in the case of geogrid reinforcement, and the differential settlement decreased around 35%, proving the efficiency of piled embankments with geogrid reinforcements. It is also shown that, using X-ray CT method and visualization techniques provides a better understanding of soil behavior in a reinforced embankment with the flexible pile foundation system. © 2015, Indian Academy of Sciences.