Literature review on numerical analysis of piled embankment

Abstract

The increasing need for infrastructure development has often forced engineers to deal with building on soft soils. The soft soil cannot take external load without having large deformations. Thus, soil improvement is needed. One of the soil improvement techniques is a “piled embankment”. Several analytical methods exist for the design of piled embankments. However, there are uncertainties with the methods as the piled embankment consists of complex soil-structure interaction. Nowadays, numerical methods such as finite element analysis are available for analysing complex soil structure interaction problems. Nevertheless, clear and uniform procedures or guidelines on piled embankment design with finite element method are not available. This research is aimed to establish reliable calculation procedures of piled embankment design using finite element analysis. For this reason, literature about piled embankments is analysed and a comprehensive research proposal on numerical analyses of piled embankments is established in order to improve the technique in the future design guidelines. From the analysed literature on piled embankments, there are several uncertainties in the design of piled embankments as well as in the procedure of numerical analysis of piled embankments. In the framework of this topic, several research topics have been established to reduce the uncertainties. The research topics include the investigation of the influence of soil constitutive models, the number of geosynthetic layers, the effects of the pile installation process, the pile penetration depth, the effects of consolidation and creep and the possible local failure on the soil arching development and differential settlement of a piled embankment. In addition to that, research on the correlation between 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional numerical analyses and the determination of geosynthetic tension are also considered. The research items are required to obtain a better understanding of the design of piled embankments especially in the case of floating piles using finite element analysis. Furthermore, a proper procedure for piled embankment design using finite element method with reliable parameter assumptions need to be found