The Comparison of the Soft Clay Settlement Under an Embankment Load Using Field Instrumentation and Empirical Formulation

Abstract

Settlement of embankments on soft soils is a significant problem in geotechnical engineering to maintain pavements, buildings, and other facilities on them. The problem that often arises is not being able to predict the magnitude of consolidation compression accurately, this occurs due to uncertainty in field conditions, laboratory testing, and data interpretation, as well as assumptions made in the development of 1-D consolidation theory. Based on the causes of inaccurate settlements predictions, it is necessary to carry out research on a better method for predicting embankment's settlement on soft soil. To obtain the correct method, a study was conducted by comparing and examining the consolidation settlement of embankments built on soft soil using theoretical calculations and field measurement results. The process involved monitoring the settlements using 25 plate measurement data in embankment preloading for housing and building construction over the very soft clay. The results showed the compression parameter, especially Cc, is very influential on the compression ratio, and the Cc value based on the empirical formula of Bowles (1989) turned out to be the most suitable for the actual compression results in the field with a compression ratio between 0.6-1.1 and confidence of level 90%.

A study on settlements of road embankments on soft ground using vertical drains

“…In particular, excessive residual settlement cause pavement rutting, poor riding quality and hazardous damages to structures due to differential displacement. As a result, study of embankment settlement on soft ground is a vital geotechnical task in order to maintain serviceability of the road embankment, pavement, and facilities [1]. Specific significances of the settlement studies include: (i) to provide better understanding of the settlement behaviors during and after the construction of the road embankment; (ii) to anticipate the total settlement, on that basis to determine the consolidation degree and the removal conditions of surcharges before the pavement structure construction; and (iii) to estimate the additional earthwork quantity relating to the measurement and payment in the contracts.…”

“…So far, many research works have been made to study the settlement behaviors under the road embankment and to investigate the relationship between the anticipated settlement data from the design and the actual data collected in the fields [1][2][3]. Rezania, Bagheri, Nezhad, and Sivasithamparam in [4] employed an anisotropic creep constitutive model known as Creep-SCLAY1S to study the installation effects of prefabricated vertical drains (PVDs) on the behavior of a full scale test embankment at Haarajoki embankment in Finland.…”

The Evaluation of Pipeline Protection Influenced by Causeway Embankment Using the Finite Element Method (FEM)

“…The seabed in this area is predominantly composed of soft clay. Research on embankment construction on soft soil, utilizing both empirical methods and the finite element method (FEM), has been extensively discussed, including [1][2][3][4].…”

“…The embankment on soft soil leads to various stability issues, one of which is significant settlement with a low bearing capacity [3][4][5]. Soil improvement is implemented to mitigate stability issues of embankments on soft soil, for example, using prefabricated vertical drains (PVD) to accelerate the consolidation process [3].…”

Causes of Landslides in Road Embankment with Retaining Wall and Pile Foundation: A Case Study of National Road Project in Porong-Sidoarjo, Indonesia

“…Furthermore, backfill was conducted through the stage construction method to avoid future occurrences. The embankment was also expected to be adequately safer against landslides due to the increase in the underlying subgrade parameters through embankment stage construction combined with PVD [18]- [20]. However, landslides were occurring continuously, adversely affecting human lives and properties.…”