Lateral Displacements of Soft Ground Under Embankment Loading

Prediction of the settlements and the lateral deformations of the ground are essential for the design of embankments. Several techniques are available to control embankment deformations by different construction and ground improvement methods. One frequently used method of improving soft ground is to provide a stiff reinforced granular bed (RGB) over soft ground. This paper presents the analysis of deformations of the embankment over RGB treating the system as a two-layer soil system consisting of a stiff layer over homogeneous soft clay layer as the foundation through incremental loading representing the staged construction of the embankment. The settlements and lateral deformations of the two-layer system are obtained using PLAXIS software. The results indicate that the toe displacement at the end of construction of the embankment gets reduced up to 60% of those without reinforced granular bed with the placement of RGB over soft ground.