Finite element analysis on the dynamic behavior of soil arching effect in piled embankment

Most research conducted so far has investigated the soil arching in piled embankment under static loads, knowledge on their dynamic behaviors under transient loads of moving vehicles is rather limited in the literature, especially considering the subsoil consolidation, and therefore it deserves more research attention. This paper presented a series of finite element (FE) models to investigate the dynamic behavior of soil arching effect in piled embankment. At a given load cycle number of 300, since the subsoil was not fully consolidated, 'Model B' yielded much smaller results in terms of both the settlement and earth pressure coefficient than 'Model A', with the difference of approximately 50%. A three-dimensional (3D) column model with a simplified subsoil consolidation procedure (Model E) was presented to simplify the problem of time-consuming and difficult to convergence. A close agreement was observed between the two models both in terms of the settlement and the earth pressure coefficient of the embankment, and therefore concluded that 'Model E' was much more suitable for the simulation of piled embankment under dynamic loads. The parametric study relating to the dynamic load type, velocity and vehicle wheel load showed that the soil arching effect remained valid, but was reduced under dynamic loads, especially when the vehicle wheel load and velocity were relatively large. The dynamic load type was found to have an obvious influence on the soil arching effect, in which the settlement increased by approximately 6% when varying the half-sine load type to the sine load type. As expected, the increased vehicle wheel load and velocity aggravated the dynamic vertical stress and settlement of the piled embankment.