On the numerical analysis of piled embankments

When dealing with soft soils, piled embankments is one of the most promising soil improvement techniques. For an optimal design of a piled embankment, an extremely complex soil-structure interaction problem has to be addressed. It involves an integrated design of piles, soil arching in the embankment and of geotextile reinforcement. Nowadays, numerical methods such as finite element analysis are available for analysing such a complex soil-structure interaction. This paper discusses two important aspects in the numerical analysis of piled embankments. First, a procedure to incorporate the effects of pile installation in a numerical analysis of a displacement pile and thereafter the numerical analysis of soil arching in a piled embankment. The results of numerical analysis are compared to reference case studies.