Arching Effect in Piled Embankments

This research was initiated from the Shanghai F1 speedway project constructed on the typical soft ground of Shanghai. To meet the need for its high speed, piled embankments were used to support this speedway. The embankment fill includes not only lime fly-ash but also EPS, which was used to alleviate the total load. In addition, large-size pile caps were used. All these measures were intended to reduce the ground settlement. Arching effect is one of the main reasons why the piles with individual caps can support most part of load. This paper discusses several available soil arching theories. Due to the complexity of this problem, numerical analysis was done to investigate the arching effect in embankments where the fill was uniform. The comparison between the numerical results and these available methods is presented. This study also investigates the influence of EPS on the effect of arching using the numerical method.