3D Numerical Modeling of Pile embankment performance on Soft Soil

Embankments are often required in many civil engineering construction projects involving infrastructure development to elevate the ground level. Due to the limitation of land availability for infrastructure projects in many countries, a large number of projects are now being carried out on soft ground. However, embankment construction over soft ground is a challenging task due to several undesirable characteristics associated with soft soils such as local instability, inadequate bearing capacity and large settlements, which can occur over a long period of time. These problems can generally result in expensive remedial measures and long construction delays. The conventional soft ground improvement methods based on consolidation such as vertical drains and preloading are not suitable when projects have to be completed within a short period of time or the ground improvement has to be carried out in contaminated ground. In such situations, reinforced pile-supported embankments are increasingly used as an alternative construction method due to the shorter construction time required compared to consolidation based methods and due to the higher reliability of the method when the subsoil properties cannot be relied upon. . This paper presents a comprehensive numerical study carried out using the finite element method in order to investigate the performance of reinforced pile supported embankment. A detailed parametric study is presented inthree-dimensional conditions incorporating the full geometry of embankment system. The influence of pile embedded length, pile diameter, elastic modulus of piles, height of the embankment, construction rate of the embankment were investigated on the performance of the selected embankment