The use of piled embankments can be an effective alternative to conventional solutions for the problem of building on compressible soils. In such situations, the embankment load is transferred from the soft soil to the piles by means of soil arching in the fill material. Typically, one or more geogrids are included in the embankment fill in order to aid in the load transfer.;There are numerous methods of design and analysis available for piled embankments. However, in each of these design approaches it is assumed that the entire embankment load is transferred to the piles caps either by arching in the fill or by tension in the geogrid. That is, the contribution of the compressible soil to the support of the embankment load is neglected. A series of model tests has been performed in the present study in order to examine the influence of the compressibility of the soft soil on the embankment load transfer. In general, it was found that an increase in compressibility results in an increase in load transfer.;Also investigated during the model testing was the influence of multiple geogrids on the arching in the fill. Results indicate that one geogrid included in the embankment fill produces a considerable increase in load transfer. The influence of a second geogrid, however, is much less significant.
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