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Finite Element Modeling of Soil Arching in Pile Supported Embankment: 2D Approach

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Innovative Solutions for Deep Foundations and Retaining Structures (GeoMEast 2019)

Abstract

The presence of soft soil located along the coastal belt of Australia poses a serious challenge to the construction of infrastructure projects. The pile-supported embankments provide a viable alternative to deal with such problematic soil. The soil arching mechanism plays a key role in transferring loads to piles in an efficient manner. In this study, a simplified two-dimensional finite element approach is used to demonstrate soil-arching mechanism in a granular embankment supported by piles. The influence of the piled-embankment properties such as elastic modulus of pile, friction angle and modulus of embankment-fill are investigated on the soil arching in term of stress concentration ratio. It is found that the pile and embankment modulli and friction angle significantly affects the arching mechanism. The thickness of arching zone is found to maximum at the mid of subsoil whereas minimum on the pile head and is analogous to the multi-shell theory. The effect of embankment height and pile spacing have also been reported.

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Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by the Government of India under the National Overseas Scholarship, No. 11016/16/2016 Education.

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Correspondence to Sanjay Nimbalkar .

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Meena, N.K., Nimbalkar, S., Fatahi, B. (2020). Finite Element Modeling of Soil Arching in Pile Supported Embankment: 2D Approach. In: Pinto, P., Ou, CY., Shehata, H. (eds) Innovative Solutions for Deep Foundations and Retaining Structures. GeoMEast 2019. Sustainable Civil Infrastructures. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34190-9_4

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