Dynamic soil arching in piled embankment under train load of high-speed railways

Piled embankments have many advantages that have been applied in high-speed railway construction engineering.However,the load transfer mechanism of piled embankments,such as soil arching and tension membranes,is still unclear,especially under dynamic loads.To investigate the soil arching and tension membrane under dynamic train loads on high-speed railways,a large-scale piled embankment model test with X-shaped piles as vertical reinforcement was performed,in which twenty-eight earth pressure cells were installed in the piled embankment and an M-shaped wave was adopted to simulate the high-speed railway train load.The results show that dynamic soil arching only occurs when two bogies of a carriage pass by and disappears at other times.The dynamic soil arching and membrane effect are the most significant under the concrete base.The arching height,stress concentration ratio and pile-soil load sharing ratio have a minimal value at 25 Hz.The dynamic soil arching degrades severely at 25 Hz,whose height at 25 Hz is only 0.35 times that at 5 Hz.The arching height fluctuates over a narrow range with increasing loading amplitude.The stress concentration ratio and the pile-soil load sharing ratio increase monotonically as the loading amplitude increases.

Model tests on XCC-piled embankment under dynamic train load of high-speed railways

Piled embankments,which offer many advantages,are increasingly popular in construction of high-speed railways in China.Although the performance of piled embankment under static loading is well-known,the behavior under the dynamic train load of a high-speed railway is not yet understood.In light of this,a heavily instrumented piled embankment model was set up,and a model test was carried out,in which a servo-hydraulic actuator outputting M-shaped waves was adopted to simulate the process of a running train.Earth pressure,settlement,strain in the geogrid and pile and excess pore water pressure were measured.The results show that the soil arching height under the dynamic train load of a high-speed railway is shorter than under static loading.The growth trend for accumulated settlement slowed down after long-term vibration although there was still a tendency for it to increase.Accumulated geogrid strain has an increasing tendency after long-term vibration.The closer the embankment edge,the greater the geogrid strain over the subsoil.Strains in the pile were smaller under dynamic train loads,and their distribution was different from that under static loading.At the same elevation,excess pore water pressure under the track slab was greater than that under the embankment shoulder.

Simplified analytical solution for stress concentration ratio of piled embankments incorporating pile–soil interaction

Piled embankments have been extensively used for high-speed rail over soft soils because of their effectiveness in minimizing differential settlement and shortening the construction period.Stress concentration ratio,defined as the ratio of vertical stress carried by pile heads(or pile caps if applicable)to that by adjacent soils,is a fundamental parameter in the design of piled embankments.In view of the complicated load transfer mechanism in the framework of embankment system,this paper presents a simplified analytical solution for the stress concentration ratio of rigid pile-supported embankments.In the derivation,the effects of cushion stiffness,pile–soil interaction,and pile penetration behavior are considered and examined.A modified linearly elastic-perfectly plastic model was used to analyze the mechanical response of a rigid pile–soil system.The analytical model was verified against field data and the results of numerical simulations from the literature.According to the proposed method,the skin friction distribution,pile–soil relative displacement,location of neural point,and differential settlement between the pile head(or cap)and adjacent soils can be determined.This work serves as a fast algorithm for initial and reasonable approximation of stress concentration ratio on the design aspects of piled embankments.

Seismic response analysis of GRPS embankment under oblique incident P wave

In order to investigate the seismic performance of geosynthetic reinforced and pile supported(GRPS) embankment under seismic loads, an input method for three-dimensional oblique incidence of P wave was proposed. This method is based on the explicit finite element method while considering the viscous-spring artificial boundary(VSAB) condition. Using the proposed method, a numerical study was conducted, and the influence of oblique incidence on the seismic response of GRPS embankment under the oblique incident P waves was analyzed. The results indicate that in comparison with vertical incidence, the oblique incidence can significantly increase the displacement, velocity and acceleration of key locations in the GRPS embankment. The existence of geosynthetics can alleviate the impact of seismic load on the response of the embankment to a certain degree. Moreover, the number of reinforcement layers and modulus of geogrid also greatly influence the seismic performance of GRPS embankment.

Reliability-based settlement analysis of embankments over soft soils reinforced with T-shaped deep cement mixing piles

This paper presents a reliability-based settlement analysis of T-shaped deep cement mixing(TDM)pile-supported embankments over soft soils.The uncertainties of the mechanical properties of the in-situ soil,pile,and embankment,and the effect of the pile shape are considered simultaneously.The analyses are performed using Monte Carlo Simulations in combination with an adaptive Kriging(using adaptive sampling algorithm).Individual and system failure probabilities,in terms of the differential and maximum settlements(serviceability limit state(SLS)requirements),are considered.The reliability results for the embankments supported by TDM piles,with various shapes,are compared and discussed together with the results for conventional deep cement mixing pile-supported embankments with equivalent pile volumes.The influences of the inherent variabilities in the material properties(mean and coefficient of variation values)on the reliability of the piled embankments,are also investigated.This study shows that large TDM piles,particularly those with a shape factor of greater than 3,can enhance the reliability of the embankment in terms of SLS requirements,and even avoid unacceptable reliability levels caused by variability in the material properties.

Field study on performance of new technique of geosynthetic-reinforced and pile-supported embankment at bridge approach

Vehicle bumps at a bridge approach caused by the differential settlement between a bridge and an adjacent backfill embankment are one of the most difficult problems in geotechnical engineering. Large vehicle bumps make drivers uncomfortable and cause large impact loads on vehicles and the bridge abutment. A new ground-improvement technique called fixed-geosynthetic-reinforced and pile-supported embankment(FGT embankment) was developed and used to alleviate vehicle bumps at a trial bridge-approach site located in central China. To distribute the differential settlement between the bridge and adjacent backfill embankment over a long transition zone, the following three techniques were used at the trial bridge-approach site:(a) the FGT embankment,(b) conventional geosynthetic-reinforced and pile-supported embankment(CT embankment), and(c) geosynthetic-reinforced embankment without piles(GR embankment). The performance of all three techniques in the field trial was investigated by field measurements involving earth pressure cells, geosynthetic deformation sensors, and settlement gauges. The FGT and CT embankments exhibited better performance than the GR embankment. Compared with the CT embankment, the FGT embankment was more effective at ground improvement. At an elevation of 4.0 m from the base of the embankment, the pressures below the geosynthetic were smaller than those above the geosynthetic at the closest measurement point. The difference between the pressures between above and below the geosynthetic tended to increase with the embankment height.

2D and 3D discrete numerical modelling of soil arching

In this study,2D and 3D soil arching phenomena associated with piled embankments were evaluated by performing a series of discrete numerical analyses using the particle flow code(PFC3D)software.After validating the micro-parameters with experimental results,we compared the stress-displacement distribution,force chain evolution,maximum vertical displacement of particles,and deformation characteristics induced by 2D and 3D arching effects.Additional analyses were carried out to understand the influence of the fill height,pile clear spacing,friction coefficient,and porosity on soil arching with respect to the stress concentration ratio(SCR)and settlement along the elevation at various sections.The numerical results indicated that a plane soil arch in a 2D embankment overestimates the degree of load transfer and underestimates the settlement at the crest and within the embankment along the elevation in a 3D embankment.A lower equal settlement plane can be found in a 2D embankment.Furthermore,an increase of fill height and friction angle,and a decrease of pile clear spacing and porosity can help to improve the degree of reduction in load transfer and settlement in both 2D and 3D embankments.However,for partially mobilized soil arching in the 3D condition,the increase of fill height reduces the settlement of soils mainly in the portion above the square subsoil area,but has less influence over the portion above the rectangular subsoil area.