See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/232883124

Performance of Cement-Fly Ash-Gravel Pile-Supported High-

Speed Railway Embankments over Soft Marine Clay

Article  in  Marine Georesources and Geotechnology · April 2011

DOI: 10.1080/1064119X.2010.532700

CITATIONS READS

22 1,022

4 authors, including:

Yan Jiang Jie Han

Terracon Consultants, Inc. University of Kansas
18 PUBLICATIONS   105 CITATIONS    307 PUBLICATIONS   4,305 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Soil Arching investigation View project

Laterally Loaded Piles View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Yan Jiang on 01 July 2015.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 Marine Georesources and Geotechnology, 29:145–161, 2011
Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1064-119X print=1521-0618 online
DOI: 10.1080/1064119X.2010.532700

Performance of Cement-Fly Ash-Gravel

Pile-Supported High-Speed Railway Embankments
over Soft Marine Clay

GANG ZHENG1, YAN JIANG1, JIE HAN2, AND

YUAN-FENG LIU1
1
Department of Civil Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China
2
Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering (CEAE)
Department, The University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, USA
Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 01:59 19 April 2011

The Beijing-Tainjin high-speed railway were constructed between two major cities in
China. Since part of the railway is over soft marine clay, appropriate ground
improvement, cement-fly ash-gravel piles, was selected to improve the soft marine
clay to meet technical requirements for the high-speed railway. This article presents
the field measurements in the railway embankment project including the load distri-
bution between soils and piles, excess pore pressure, and settlement and lateral
displacement. The test results show that the stress concentration to the piles reduced
the excess pore pressure effectively. The proportion of the load carried by soils was
small, and thus the settlement was significantly reduced. The compression of the
rigid piles contributed to less than 21% of the total settlement. The majority of
the settlement was contributed by the penetration of the piles and the compression
of the soft soil below the pile tips. The average compression thickness below the pile
tips was 22 m, which is equivalent to one times the width of the treated area. The
measured differential settlement of the embankment was approximately 3 mm.

Keywords cement-fly ash-gravel pile, clay, embankment, field measurement,

high speed railway

Introduction
With rapid development of high speed railways in China, it is inevitable to meet
challenges for high-speed railway embankments (HSRE) constructed over soft clay.
Appropriate ground improvement is often needed for HSRE to meet the require-
ments of bearing capacity, settlement, and stability. Various techniques are available
for such ground improvement, such as fill and=or vacuum preloading, vertical drain-
age, over-excavation and replacement, stone columns, deep mixed columns, and rigid

Received 19 April 2010; accepted 6 October 2010.

The authors want to acknowledge the support of the National Natural Science Foun-
dation of China (No. 51078263) and the support of Tianjin Natural Science Foundation
(No. 07JCZDJC09800).
Address correspondence to Dr. Gang Zheng, Department of Civil Engineering, Tianjin
University, No. 92 Weijin Road, Nankai District, Tianjin, 300072, China. E-mail:
zhengzige2004@yahoo.com.cn

145
 146 G. Zheng et al.

piles (Magnan, 1994). Pile-supported embankments have been increasingly adopted

and researched in the past few years (Russell and Pierpoint, 1997; Han and Gabr,
2002; Kempfert et al., 2004; Chen et al., 2008a and 2008b; Huang et al., 2009).
A number of experimental, analytical, and numerical studies have been conduc-
ted on piled embankments over soft soil. For instance, Chen et al. (2008a) performed
a series of model experiments and investigated the influence factors for stress concen-
tration ratio and settlement within the piled embankment. Jenck et al. (2007) used a
steel rod assembly to model embankment fill in two-dimensional physical model
experiments to investigate settlement reduction and load transfer mechanisms by
soil arching.
Different soil arching theories were proposed for piled embankments. For
example, Hewlett and Randolph (1988) and Kempfert et al. (2004) proposed their
theories on the basis of the vault shape models. Russell and Pierpoint (1997) assessed
an approach based on the Terzaghi soil arching theory, which considers the equilib-
rium of the soil zones above the soft soil. Svano et al. (2000) assumed a wedge of soil
Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 01:59 19 April 2011

in the embankment fill supported by piles. Chen et al. (2008b) assumed that the piles,
the embankment fill, and the foundation soil deformed one-dimensionally and
obtained the solutions for the embankment settlement, the skin friction along the
pile shaft, and the proportion of the load carried by the pile.
However, Stewart and Filz (2005) demonstrated that different design methods
based on simplified soil arching models may yield very different results in the stress
calculations. Therefore, numerical methods have been used by researchers to inves-
tigate the stress distribution and transfer in piled embankments. For example, Han
and Gabr (2002), Huang et al. (2005), Zheng et al. (2008), Huang et al. (2009), Jenck
et al. (2009), and Abusharar et al. (2009). Han and Gabr (2002) investigated several
influencing factors of geosynthetic-reinforced pile-supported embankments under a
unit-cell condition and found that the stiffness of the piles had effects on the total
and differential settlements, soil arching ratio, and tension in geosynthetics. Huang
et al. (2005) analyzed a constructed geosynthetic-reinforced pile-supported embank-
ment with three layers of geosynthetic reinforcement over rigid piles and pile caps.
This numerical analysis showed that the fill platform reinforced by three layers of
geosynthetics behaved like a beam. However, Huang et al. (2009) found that one
layer of geosynthetic reinforcement at the base of the embankment behaved like a
tensioned membrane. Huang et al. (2009) also pointed out that stiff columns accel-
erated the consolidation of the soft soil. Abusharar et al. (2009) investigated the
behavior of rigid pile-supported embankments and the effect of the cushion above
the piles. They found that rigid piles could effectively reduce total and differential
settlements, minimize lateral displacement, enhance stability of the embankment,
and accelerate the dissipation of excess pore pressure. Zheng et al. (2008) investi-
gated the behavior of embankments supported by cement-fly ash-gravel piles using
a three-dimensional numerical method. Jenck et al. (2009) also conducted a three-
dimensional numerical analysis of an embankment over a soft ground improved
by rigid piles. Their numerical results showed that the rigid piles could reduce
approximately 80% of the embankment settlement and 50% of the horizontal
displacement as compared with the unreinforced case.
As reviewed above, the numerical results showed that rigid piles could effectively
reduce total and differential settlements. However, few field studies on rigid
pile-supported embankments have been conducted so far to verify the numerical
results, especially for a high speed railway embankment, which has a strict
 Railway Embankments over Soft Marine Clay 147

post-construction settlement requirement. Cement-fly ash-gravel piles, referred to as

CFG piles, have been successfully used in China to support buildings and embank-
ments. They are installed by augering into the ground and backfilling a mix of
cement, fly ash, gravel, and water through the core of the auger while withdrawing
the auger. Past research shows that CFG piles have high strength and stiffness; there-
fore, they can be considered as rigid piles. In this study, two CFG pile-supported
embankments along the Beijing-Tianjin high speed railway in China were monitored
and investigated. The proportion of the loads carried by soil and piles, excess pore
pressure, settlement, and lateral displacement were evaluated and are discussed in
this article.

Project Background
The Beijing-Tianjin high-speed railway is located in north China and connects two
major cities, Beijing and Tianjin. The length of this railway is 115 kilometers and
Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 01:59 19 April 2011

the design speed of high-speed strains is 350 km=h. In this study, the two embank-
ments at Stations DK84 þ 050 (referred as Station 1 in this paper) and
DK84 þ 150 (Station 2), between the Yangcun Bridge and the Yongding River
Bridge within the Wuqing district in Tianjin, were investigated.

Site Conditions
The project site mainly consists of inter-layered marine and continental deposits.
Figures 1 and 2 presents the soil properties at Stations 1 and 2, respectively, which
include natural water content, liquid limit, plasticity index, initial void ratio, over
consolidation ratio (OCR), and undrained shear strength. The OCR values were
determined by oedometer tests. The undrained shear strength was estimated using
the formula cu ¼ 0.25r0 v
(OCR)0.8 proposed by Ladd et al. (1977). The groundwater
table was 0.6 to 2.5 m deep from the ground surface. Figures 1 and 2 shows that the
undrained shear strength increased almost linearly with depth. According to the Uni-
fied Soil Classification System (USCS), the soils in this project site are mostly clays
with low plasticity. The names of the soil layers listed in Tables 1 and 2 were given
according to Terzaghi et al. (1996).
The soil profile at Station 1 from top to bottom is as follows: a 3.7-m thick
medium clay underlain by a 6.6-m thick soft clay and a 39.7-m medium to stiff clay.
The soil profile at Station 2 from top to bottom is as follows: a 5.2-m thick medium
clay underlain by a 2.8-m thick soft clay and a 42-m medium to stiff clay. The aver-
age soil properties at these two stations are summarized in Tables 1 and 2.

Embankment Design
As shown in Figure 3, the embankments were 7.2 and 7.25 m high at Station 1 and
Station 2, respectively, and had a 13.6-m wide crest at both stations. The side slopes
were 1(V):1.5(H). The embankments included embankment fill, sub-base courses,
and base courses. The base course was 0.4 m thick and consisted of well-graded
aggregate. This aggregate had a subgrade modulus K30 (determined using a 30-cm
diameter loading plate) and an elasticity modulus E higher than 190 MPa=m and
120 MPa, respectively. The sub-base course was 2.3 m thick and consisted of
well-graded sand and gravel. This sub-base course had a subgrade modulus K30
 148 G. Zheng et al.
Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 01:59 19 April 2011

Figure 1. Soil profiles at Station 1.

and an elasticity modulus E higher than 130 MPa=m and 60 MPa, respectively. The
embankment fill was a cement-stabilized soil, which had subgrade modulus K30 and
an elasticity modulus E higher than 90 MPa=m and 45 MPa, respectively. Reinforced
concrete counterfort retaining walls were constructed on both sides to ensure the
stability of the embankment and the center-to-center space between two counterforts
is 3 m. A 0.3-m thick gravel layer was placed behind the retaining walls as a drainage
layer.
A 0.5-m thick reinforced concrete slab was constructed under the embankment
fill. The slab and the retaining wall were supported by CFG piles. These piles
were cast-in-place and formed by cement, gravel, sand (0.16 mm < particle size
< 4.75 mm), pulverized fly ash, and water at a ratio of 1:4.08:3.34:0.67:0.92. The
 Railway Embankments over Soft Marine Clay 149
Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 01:59 19 April 2011

Figure 2. Soil profiles at Station 2.

Table 1. Average soil properties at Station 1

Unit Water Liquid Plastic Constrained
Thickness weight content limit limit Void modulus
Soil layer (m) (kN=m3) (%) (%) (%) ratio (MPa)

Medium clay 3.7 19 32.1 40.2 24.9 0.90 8.05

Soft clay 6.6 18.5 37.3 36.5 23.4 1 6.60
Medium to 39.7 19.6 25.9 33.1 20.1 0.7 13.3
stiff clay
 150 G. Zheng et al.

Table 2. Average soil properties at Station 2

Unit Water Liquid Plastic Constrained
Thickness weight content limit limit Void modulus
Soil layer (m) (kN=m3) (%) (%) (%) ratio (MPa)

Medium clay 5.2 19.1 27.2 32.8 20.4 0.8 12.25

Soft clay 2.8 18 41.9 48 26.8 1.2 5.95
Medium to 32 19.4 26.4 33.7 20.2 0.73 11.30
stiff clay

unconfined compressive strength of the CFG piles was higher than 20 MPa. The
CFG piles used to support retaining walls were 26.85 m long at both stations, and
those used to support slab were 27.50 and 27.65 m long at the Stations 1 and 2,
Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 01:59 19 April 2011

respectively. The diameter of the piles was 0.4 m and arranged in a square pattern.
The center-to-center spacing of CFG piles under the slab and the retaining wall
was 1.5 m and 1.4 m, respectively, as shown in Figure 4.
The installation of each CFG pile followed the following procedures: (1) A long
hollow-stem auger was drilled into the ground to the desired depth. Concrete mix-
ture was pumped into the hole through the hollow-stem auger. (2) The auger was
withdrawn at a rate of approximate 2.3 m=min up to the elevation of 50 cm higher
than the designed pile elevation in order to ensure an extra material above the
designed elevation. (3) After the withdrawing of the auger, the pile head was covered
by a curing blanket and the pile was cured for 14 days to ensure the development of
its compressive strength. Then the extra material was removed.
A 0.15-m thick gravel cushion was placed on the top of piles and then covered by
the concrete slab in the middle portion of the embankment. Similarly, underneath
the foundation of the retaining wall, a 0.3-m thick cushion (a 0.1-m thick
low-strength concrete cushion laid on a 0.2-m thick gravel cushion) was placed on
the top of piles. The embankment fill, sub-base, and base courses were placed above
the concrete slab and the foundation of the retaining wall. A polyester geotextile
sheet was laid on the top of the sub-base course in order to separate subbase course
from the surcharge soil. The polyester geotextile had a thickness of 1.2 mm and a ten-
sile strength of higher than 7.5 kN=m in both longitudinal and transverse directions.
Extra clay fill was added on the top of the geotextile up to 3.5 m high as a surcharge
for preloading. The surcharge soil at the base had the same width as the top of
sub-base course, was compacted at the unit weight higher than 18 kN=m3, and
had a 1(V):1(H) side slope side on each side. The base course would be added after
removing the surcharge when the required consolidation was achieved. Roller com-
pactors were used for compaction. Figure 5 shows the history of the embankment
construction and preloading before the surcharge was removed.

Field Measurement Results

Instrumentation Type and Layout
Earth pressures, piezometers, and extensometer rings were placed under the concrete
slab. The locations of the six earth pressure cells (P1 through P6) are shown in
 Railway Embankments over Soft Marine Clay 151
Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 01:59 19 April 2011

Figure 3. Cross sections of embankments.

 152 G. Zheng et al.
Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 01:59 19 April 2011

Figure 4. Plan view of CFG piles and locations of instrumentations.

Figure 4. The piezometers were placed at depths of 7 and 27 m at Station 1 and 8 and
22 m at Station 2 along the centerline of the embankment, respectively. Several mag-
netic extensometer rings were also installed along a plastic pipe close to the centerline
of the embankments to measure the settlements below the concrete slab at different
depths up to 60 m deep.
 Railway Embankments over Soft Marine Clay 153

Figure 5. Embankment pressure history.

Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 01:59 19 April 2011

Stress Distribution between Soil and Piles

Earth pressure cells (P1 through P6) were placed on the soil between the piles, as
shown in Figure 4. The load on the piles was back-calculated by the difference of
the total load subtracted by the load carried by the soil.
Figure 6 presents the vertical stresses carried by the soil between piles under the
retaining wall at Station 1 and close to the centerline of the embankment at Station
2, respectively. Figure 6 shows that the vertical stress carried by the soil was less than
25 kPa. This stress level is close to the undrained shear strength of the clay near the
existing ground surface, and therefore the bearing capacity of the soft soil is not an
issue. The low stress level of the soil below the slab demonstrates that majority of the
load was carried by the CFG piles. Figure 6 also shows that the vertical stress on the
soil slightly decreased with time under a constant embankment load. This phenom-
enon implies that more stress was transferred to the piles. This stress transfer was
attributed to the consolidation of the soft soil by Han and Ye (2001).
Figure 7 shows the change of stress concentration ratio with time. The stress
concentration ratio is defined as the ratio of the vertical stress on the piles to that
on the soil. It can be seen that the stress concentration ratio generally increased with
the embankment load at both stations, but with some variations. The maximum
stress concentration ratios at both stations approached to 200. The higher stress con-
centration ratio results from the higher modulus ratio of the pile to the soil and the
rigid concrete slab.

Variation of Excess Pore Water Pressure

Figure 8 presents the measured excess pore water pressure with time at both stations.
It is shown that there was an increase of the excess pore water pressure after each
loading and then followed by a dissipation of pore water pressure during the con-
stant load period. The magnitude of the excess pore water pressure is comparable
to the vertical stress on the soil as discussed earlier. Han and Ye (2001) accredited
the fast dissipation of excess pore water pressure in stone column-treated founda-
tions to the combined effect of the drainage of the stone columns and the stress
transfer from the soil to the columns due to their stiffness difference. Huang et al.
 154 G. Zheng et al.
Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 01:59 19 April 2011

Figure 6. Vertical stresses acting on soil.

(2009) confirmed the same phenomenon existed in deep mixed columns-treated foun-
dations even though the deep-mixed columns had the same permeability as the soft
soil. For both embankments, the measured excess pore water pressure at the end of
construction was nearly zero (i.e., almost completely dissipated).

Settlement versus Time

Figure 9 shows the measured settlements at the bases of the two embankments near
their centerlines with the elapsed time. It is shown that the maximum settlements
for both embankments reached 50 to 60 mm after the last stage construction.
The high settlement rates from 280 to 330 days corresponded to the high embank-
ment filling rate, as shown in Figure 5. However, these settlement rates (less than
2 mm=day) were much less than the criterion of 10 mm=day required for this pro-
ject. Based on the minimum undrained shear strength (cu ¼ 22 kPa), the maximum
 Railway Embankments over Soft Marine Clay 155
Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 01:59 19 April 2011

Figure 7. Stress concentration ratio with time.

allowable embankment height on the natural soil would be approximately 3.8 m if a

factor of safety of 1.5 is used. Obviously, the constructed embankment (more than
7.2 m high) was much higher than this allowable embankment height. This result
demonstrated that the effectiveness of the rigid piles to ensure the stability of the
embankments.
There are several methods available in the literature to estimate the final settle-
ment, such as the hyperbolic method (Sridharan et al., 1987; Tan et al., 1991), the
velocity method (Parkin, 1978), and the Asaoka method (Asaoka, 1978). Among
these methods, the hyperbolic and Asaoka methods are two most commonly used
methods in practice and therefore adopted in this study as well. The predicted final
settlements under the preloading surcharge for Stations 1 and 2 are 69.5 and
71.1 mm, respectively, by the hyperbolic method are 52.4 and 62.3 mm, respectively,
by the Asaoka method. The average total settlements for Stations 1 and 2 are 60.9
and 66.7 mm, respectively. The equivalent degrees of consolidation at the end of pre-
loading for both stations are higher than 80%, which is commonly used in practice.
 156 G. Zheng et al.
Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 01:59 19 April 2011

Figure 8. Variation of excess pore pressure.

Figure 9. Measured settlement versus time.

 Railway Embankments over Soft Marine Clay 157

Settlement with Depth

To investigate the sources of the settlements of the embankments, the settlements at
depths were measured by an extensometer through pre-installed magnetic rings.
Figure 10 shows the settlement vs. depth at 2 months after preloading (i.e., the
404th day from the beginning of the construction). It is well known that the total
settlement of the piles is contributed by three sources: (1) compression of the piles,
(2) penetration of the piles, and (3) compression of the soil below the pile tips. How-
ever, for a treated foundation over soft soil, the total settlement can be considered as
the sum of the compression of the pile-soil composite foundation (i.e., from a depth
of 0 to 20 m in this study) and the compression of the soft soil starting from the lower
part of the improved zone to the influence depth below the pile tips (i.e., from 20 to
50 m). Since the pile length was about 27.5 m, the 8-m thick (i.e., about 1=3 the pile
length), soil in the lower part of the improved foundation was also subjected to the
compression. This result is consistent with the finding by Chai and Pongsivasathit
Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 01:59 19 April 2011

(2009). It is also shown that the influence depth below the pile tips was approxi-
mately down to 50 m (i.e., 22.5 m below the pile tips). Considering the width of
the pile-treated area is 20.4 m, the influence depth below the pile tips was about
one times the width of the treated area.
Figure 10 shows that the compression of the rigid pile-soil composite foundation
decreased nearly linearly with depth and was 6 and 12 mm for Stations 1 and 2,
respectively. The small compression of this composite foundation resulted from
the high stiffness of the rigid piles. When the settlement from the top is extended lin-
early to the depth of the pile tip (i.e., 27.5 m), they are 40 and 46 mm, respectively, at
Stations 1 and 2. The difference between the measured settlement and one of these
corresponding settlements is the penetration of the piles. At Station 1, the calculated
pile penetration was 21 mm while at Station 2, the calculated pile penetration was

Figure 10. Settlement with depth.

 158 G. Zheng et al.

14 mm. In other words, the compression of the soil below the pile tips was 19 and
32 mm at Stations 1 and 2, respectively. In proportion, the compression of the rigid
piles, the penetration of the rigid piles, and the compression of the soil below the pile
tips over the total settlement are 13.0%, 45.7%, and 41.3% at Station 1, respectively,
while they are 20.7%, 24.1%, and 55.2%. Therefore, the majority of the settlements
was contributed by the penetration of the piles and the compression of the soft soil
below the pile tips.
As discussed earlier, the excess pore water pressure in the soil between piles
almost dissipated at the end of the construction. However, Figure 9 shows that
the settlements still increased with the time. The continuous increase in the settle-
ments resulted from the penetration of the piles and the compression of the soft soil
below the pile tips as discussed above.
In addition, the soil compressive strains within the pile length and below the
pile tip were calculated and presented in Figure 11. It is shown that the maximum
compressive strain developed close to the pile tips, the minimum strain developed
Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 01:59 19 April 2011

with the pile length (up to 20 m), and the strain decreased again with depth below
the pile tips.

Settlement Profile
Transverse profile pipes were installed on the reinforced concrete slab to monitor dif-
ferential settlements of the slab. Since the pipes settled with the slab, the absolute
transverse settlement profiles were obtained by referencing the settlements of the
pipes at centers to the settlements of the embankments at the centerlines. Figure 12
shows the transverse settlement profile at Station 2. During all the construction per-
iod, the measured maximum differential settlement between the centerline of the

Figure 11. Soil compressive strain versus depth.

 Railway Embankments over Soft Marine Clay 159

Figure 12. Settlement profile at Station 2.

Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 01:59 19 April 2011

embankment and the toe was approximately 3 mm. Therefore, the rigid piles and the
concrete slab minimized the differential settlement effectively.

Lateral Displacement
Inclinometer pipes were installed vertically to a depth of 47 m near the toe of the
embankment to monitor lateral displacements at Stations 1 and 2. The test data
showed that the measured lateral displacements were very small and within the accu-
racy of the inclinometer. This result demonstrates the effectiveness of the rigid piles
in the reduction of lateral displacement of the soft soils under the embankment.

Conclusions
Cement-fly ash-gravel (CFG) piles as rigid piles were used to support high-speed
railway embankments over soft marine clays between Beijing and Tianjin in China.
The construction of embankments at two stations were instrumented and monitored.
The following conclusions can be drawn from this study:
1. Rigid piles carried majority of the embankment load. The combination of the
rigid piles and the reinforced concrete slab significantly reduced the stresses
applied onto the soft soils.
2. During the construction, the excess pore water pressure in the soft soil within the
pile-treated zone was small and dissipated rapidly. At the end of the construction,
all the excess pore water pressure nearly dissipated.
3. Based on the measured settlement and the final settlement extrapolated using the
hyperbolic method and Asaoka method, majority of the settlement occurred dur-
ing the construction. At the end of preloading, the degree of consolidation for
both stations reached 80% or more.
4. The settlement of the embankment was contributed by the compression of the
rigid piles, the penetration of the piles, and the compression of the soft soils below
the pile tips. The compression of the rigid piles contributed less than 21% of the
total settlement while the penetration of the piles and the compression of the soft
soils below the pile tips contributed nearly 80% of the total settlement. The soft
 160 G. Zheng et al.

soil within the lower one-third of the pile length was subjected to compression
along with the soft soils below the pile tips. The influence depth below the pile
tips was about one times the width of the pile-treated area.
5. The differential settlement on the reinforced concrete slab was small and the
lateral displacement of the soft soils below the toe of the embankment was
negligible.

References
Abusharar, S. W., J. J. Zheng, and B. G. Chen. 2009. Finite element modeling of the consoli-
dation behavior of multi-column supported road embankment. Computers and Geotech-
nics 36(4): 675–686.
Asaoka, A. 1978. Observational procedure of settlement prediction. Soils and Foundations
18(4): 87–101.
Chai, J. C. and S. Pongsivasathit. 2009. Prediction of consolidation settlements of floating col-
Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 01:59 19 April 2011

umn improved soft clayed subsoil. International Symposium on Geotechnical Engineer-

ing, Ground Improvement and Geosynthetic for Sustainable Mitigation and Adaptation
to Climate Change including Global Warming, Bangkok: Thailand, 107–115.
Chen, Y.-M., W. P. Cao, and R. P. Chen. 2008a. An experimental investigation of soil arching
within basal reinforced and unreinforced piled embankments. Geotextiles and Geomem-
branes 26(2): 164–174.
Chen, R. P., Y. M. Chen, J. Han, and Z. Z. Xu. 2008b. A theoretical solution for
pile-supported embankments on soft soils under one-dimensional compression. Canadian
Geotechnical Journal 45(5): 611–623.
Han, J. and S. L. Ye. 2001. A simplified method for computing consolidation rate of stone
column reinforced foundations. Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineer-
ing 127(7): 597–603.
Han, J. and M. A. Gabr. 2002. Numerical analysis of geosynthetic-reinforced and pile sup-
ported earth platforms over soft soil. Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental
Engineering 128(1): 44–53.
Hewlett, W. J. and M. F. Randolph. 1988. Analysis of piled embankment. Ground Engineering
21(3): 12–18.
Huang, J., J. Han, and J. G. Collin. 2005. Geogrid-reinforced pile-supported railway
embankments – three dimensional numerical analysis. Journal of Transportation Research
Board 1936: 221–229.
Huang, J., J. Han, and S. Oztoprak. 2009. Coupled mechanical and hydraulic modeling of
geosynthetic-reinforced column-supported embankments. Journal of Geotechnical and
Geoenvironmental Engineering 135(8): 1011–1021.
Jenck, O., D. Dias, and R. Kastner. 2007. Two-Dimensional physical and numerical modeling
of a pile-supported earth platform over soft soil. Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenviron-
mental Engineering 133(3): 295–305.
Jenck, O., D. Dias, and R. Kastner. 2009. Three-dimensional numerical modeling of a piled
embankment. International Journal of Geomechanics 9(3): 102–112.
Kempfert, H. G., C. Göbel, D. Alexiew, and C. Heitz. 2004. German recommendations for
reinforced embankments on pile-similar elements. The 3rd European Geosynthetics
Conference, Munich: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geotechnik, 279–284.
Ladd, C. C., R. Foot, K. Ishihara, F. Schlosser, and H. G. Poulos. 1977. Stress-deformation
and strength characteristics. State-of-the-art report. Proc. 9th Int. Conf. on Soil Mech.
and Found. Engrg., Tokyo, Vol. 2: 421–494.
Magnan, J. 1994. Methods to reduce the settlement of embankments on soft clay: A review.
Vertical-Horizontal Deformations of Foundations and Embankments. New York:
ASCE, 77–91.
 Railway Embankments over Soft Marine Clay 161

Parkin, A. K. 1978. Coefficient of consolidation by velocity method. Geotechnique 28(4):

472–474.
Russell, D. and N. Pierpoint. 1997. An assessment of design methods for piled embankments.
Ground Engineering 30(11): 39–44.
Sridharan, A., N. S. Murthy, and K. Prakash. 1987. Rectangular hyperbola method of con-
solidation analysis. Geotechnique 37(3): 355–368.
Stewart, M. E. and G. M. Filz. 2005. Influence of clay compressibility on geosynthetic loads
for bridging layer for column supported embankments. Geotechnical Special Publication
No. 131: 447–460.
Svano, G., T. Ilstad, G. Eiksund, and A. Want. 2000. Alternative calculation principle for
design of piles embankments with base reinforcement. The 4th International Conference
of Ground Improvement Geosystem, Helsinki, Finnish Geotechnical Society, 541–548.
Tan, T. S., T. Inoue, and S. L. Lee. 1991. Hyperbolic method for consolidation analysis.
Journal of Geotechnical Engineering 117(11): 1723–1737.
Terzaghi, K., R. B. Peck, and G. Mesri. 1996. Soil Mechanics in Engineering Practice, 3rd ed.
New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 01:59 19 April 2011

Zanziger, H. and E. Gartung. 2002. Performance of a geogrid reinforced railway embankment

on piles. 7th International Conference on Geosynthetics, Nice, Balkema, 381–386.
Zheng, J. J., S. W. Abusharar, and X. Z. Wang. 2008. Three-dimensional nonlinear finite
element modeling of composite foundation formed by CFG-lime piles. Computer and
Geotechnics 35(4): 637–643.

View publication stats