Embankments over piles

Reinforced Earth offers engineered solutions for the construction of embankments over piles using reinforcement geosynthetics.

In instances where structures over soft soils require piles to support embankments, the integration of a load transfer platform directly placed on top of the pile inclusions will decrease the possible differential settlements while reducing the number of piles needed to support the loads. Reinforced Earth geosynthetic basal reinforcements provide engineers and builders with a cost effective solution to assure long-term stability of built embankments that are supported with piles.

This application of basal reinforcement utilizes a very high strength and low characteristic strain geosynthetic aimed to effectively transfer loads to the pile caps, thus enhancing the arching effect on the granular soil used as engineered fill.

Applications and advantages

Structures founded over soft soils such as bridges, piers, and tanks commonly utilize piles to reduce settlements. Adjacent ramps and approaches with sensitive service limits and large fills due to a given geometry are traditionally constructed with concrete slabs or piles closely spaced.

Our solution offers a better and more economical practice using a high strength geosynthetic placed directly over wider spaced piles with a raft of selected open graded granular fill. The benefits of this approach are the decreased number of inclusions needed, faster construction, and better control of differential settlements associated with soft soils.

The interaction between the piles, high strength geosynthetics, and the granular fill provides an engineered system that can be designed using the current state of the practice approaches leading to a more resilient infrastructure.