BROADENING OF HIGHWAYS AT CRITICAL SLOPE WATERWAY EMBANKMENTS USING VERTICAL PILES

ABSTRACT The main aim of this research is to investigate the broadening of highway embankments using vertical piles towards the drains or canals slope to avoid land acquisition process. In Egypt, many problems have been ensued owing to narrow highways subjected to a continuous increase of traffic volume. Accordingly, general Authority of Roads and Bridges was obliged to develop the highways, especially, at agricultural cities such as Delta highway networks as well as Upper Egypt ones in the vicinity of the river Nile. The development of ongoing highways was considered in this research which is considered to be a portion of the national highways project launched by the Egyptian government on 2014. Stability analysis was carried out using commercial software package PLAXIS 2-D version 8.2 non-linear. PLAXIS is a finite element program that has been developed specifically for the analysis of deformation and stability in geotechnical engineering problems. A two-dimensional finite element PLAXIS 2-D was used to model the widening of the highway using vertical piles. Simulation of soil non-linearity was obtained using the Mohr-Coulomb constitutive model. The results elucidated that the piles location and piles length had significant influence on the failure modes and factor of safety.