Coupling-Based Elastic Solution of Arching Evolution for GRPSE
Publication: Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 147, Issue 11
Abstract
Complicated interactions among embankment soil, geo-reinforcement, vertical piles, and surrounding soils make it difficult to model the behavior of geosynthetic-reinforced and pile-supported embankments (GRPSE). In particular, soil arching within embankment soil plays an important role in the behavior of GRPSEs and evolves with the pile-soil differential settlement. An improved estimation of pile-soil differential settlement by including the pile top settlement can enhance the assessment of the arching effect, compared with existing methods. In this study, a simplified model with evolved arching was developed based on the unit cell, to tightly integrate all possible load transfer mechanisms of GRPSE and derive a pile-soil differential settlement dependent theoretical solution of the critical arch height. Relevant solutions were proposed and validated by comparing experimental results and other existing methods. In particular, it was found that the predicted critical height is not constant but can evolve with the pile-soil differential settlement, indicating that the evolution of the soil arching can be, in theory, monitored step-by-step.
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Data Availability Statement
All data, models, and code generated or used during the study appear in the published article.
Acknowledgments
This research was funded through the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC No. 51678231) and Postgraduate Scientific Research Innovation Project of Hunan Province, China (No. CX20200407).
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Published In
Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 147 • Issue 11 • November 2021
Copyright
© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Dec 3, 2020
Accepted: Jun 2, 2021
Published online: Sep 14, 2021
Published in print: Nov 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Feb 14, 2022
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