Numerical analysis of a pile-slab-supported railway embankment

This paper presents a numerical analysis of a well-monitored pile-slab-supported embankment for the Beijing-Tianjin high-speed railway in China. Cement-fly ash-gravel piles were used in this project. A coupled two-dimensional mechanical and hydraulic numerical model was used for this analysis and the results are compared with the field measurements including settlement, load distribution between soil and pile, and excess pore pressure. The numerical model calculated the settlement profile close to that measured in the field. The proportion of the load carried by the soil was small thus significantly reducing the settlement. The stress transfer from the soil to the piles reduced the excess pore pressure effectively. A parametric study was conducted to investigate the influence of three key factors on the performance of the embankment. The parametric study indicated that the existence of a cushion reduced the shear force in the slab. The increase in slab thickness and pile stiffness increased the shear force and bending moment in the slab. An increase in pile stiffness reduced the settlement and lateral displacement of the embankment.