Performance of Embankments With and Without Reinforcement On Soft Subsoil

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838
Performance of embankments with and without

reinforcement on soft subsoil
Jin-Chun Chai, Norihiko Miura, and Shui-Long Shen
Abstract: A case history of both reinforced and unreinforced embankments on soft subsoil built-to-failure is described
and analyzed. The effect of geotextile reinforcements on embankment behavior is discussed by comparing the field and
numerical analysis results of cases with and without reinforcement. The results of a laboratory model test on the behavior of embankments on soft subsoil are discussed. Both field and laboratory tests, as well as analysis results, indicate that the reinforcement had a positive effect on embankment stability. However, at a working state (for a factor of
safety of FS = 1.2~1.3) the reinforcement did not have an obvious effect on the subsoil response. The effect of reinforcement on subsoil deformation could be noticed only when the unreinforced embankment was close to failure. The
laboratory model test results indicated that if the reinforcement is stiff and strong enough, the effect of reinforcement
is considerable. It is suggested that although the geotextile has a beneficial effect on embankment over soft subsoil due
to its relative lower stiffness, to achieve a substantial improvement on embankment behavior, the stiffer and stronger
reinforcements should be used. This case history also demonstrated that the rate of lateral displacement and excess
pore pressure development are sensitive indicators of the stability of embankment on soft subsoil.
Key words: embankment, reinforcement, soft ground, field tests, laboratory tests, FEM analysis.
Rsum : On dcrit et analyse une histoire de cas de remblais avec et sans armature construits sur fondations molles jusqu la rupture. On discute de leffet de larmature de gotextile sur le comportement du remblai en comparant les rsultats de lanalyse numrique et de terrain pour les deux cas avec et sans armature. Au cours des discussions, on rfre aux
rsultats dun essai sur modle en laboratoire pour tudier le comportement des remblais sur sols mous. Tant les essais en
laboratoire et sur le terrain que les rsultats danalyses indiquent que larmature a un effet positif sur la stabilit dun
remblai. Cependant, en tat de travail (pour un coefficient de scurit FS = 1.2-1.3), larmature navait pas un effet vident sur la raction de la fondation. Leffet de larmature sur la dformation de la fondation a pu tre note seulement
dans la condition o le remblai non arm approchait de la rupture. Les rsultats des essais sur modle en laboratoire ont
indiqu que si larmature est raide et assez forte, son effet est considrable. On croit que, quoique le gotextile ait un effet bnfique sur la stabilit dun remblai sur fondation molle, cause de la rigidit relativement plus faible du gotextile,
les armatures plus fortes et plus rigides devraient tre utilises pour obtenir une amlioration substantielle du comportement du remblai. Cette histoire de cas a galement dmontr que le taux de dplacement latral et le dveloppement de
lexcdent de pression interstitielle sont des indicateurs sensibles de la stabilit dun remblai sur fondation molle.
Mots cls : remblai, armature, sol mou, essais sur le terrain, essais en laboratoire, analyse en lments finis.
[Traduit par la Rdaction]
Chai et al.
848
Introduction
When constructing an embankment over soft subsoil of
low strength and high compressibility, the engineering tasks
are to prevent the failure of the embankment and to control
the subsoil deformation. Several methods have been developed for economically and safely constructing embankments
on soft subsoil. Placing a layer of reinforcement at the base
of the embankment is one of the methods.
The mechanisms of reinforcing an embankment over soft

subsoil are discussed elsewhere (Bonaparte and Christopher
1987; Jewell 1988). The functions of a layer of reinforcement are: (i) to provide tensile basal reinforcement, which
contributes to the stability of the embankment, and (ii) to
provide a confinement to the embankment fill and foundation soil adjacent to reinforcement. This confining effect can
reduce the lateral distortion to the subsoil due to the embankment load, and therefore, the shear stress level in the
Received 25 May 2001. Accepted 17 January 2002. Published on the NRC Research Press Web site at http://cgj.nrc.ca on
12 July 2002.
J.-C. Chai.1 Institute of Lowland Technology, Saga University, 1 Honjo, Saga 8408502, Japan.
N. Miura. Department of Civil Engineering, Saga University, 1 Honjo, Saga 8408502, Japan.
S.-L. Shen. National Institute for Environmental Studies, 162 Onogawa, Tsukuba-Shi, Ibaraki, 3058506, Japan, and School of
Civil Engineering and Mechanics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 1954 Hua-Shan Road, Shanghai 200030, China.
1
Corresponding author (e-mail: chai@cc.saga-u.ac.jp).
Can. Geotech. J. 39: 838848 (2002)
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DOI: 10.1139/T02-033
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Chai et al.
soft subsoil. The contribution of the reinforcement effect is

related to the strength of the reinforcement, the relative stiffness of the reinforcement to the subsoil, the embankment geometry, and the factor of safety (FS) of the embankment at a
working state. Chai and Bergado (1993) showed that at a
working state, a geogrid placed at the base of an embankment had only a minor effect on the FS of the embankment
and a negligible effect on subsoil deformation. However,
there are some reported case histories in which the reinforcement had a considerable effect on the embankment behavior (e.g., Rowe et al. 1984). One of the uncertainties
regarding the magnitude of the reinforcement effect is that
some reported cases do not provide a comparison with an
unreinforced case at the same site. During back-analysis
with known measured data, any under or overestimation on
soil strength and stiffness will over or underestimate the effect of reinforcement. Also, the effect of reinforcement is
strongly stress level dependent. Using finite element analysis, Low and Duncan (1985) showed that when the FS of an
unreinforced case is less than 1.0, the reinforcement can improve the performance of the embankment significantly.
Therefore, to have a better understanding of the contribution
of the reinforcement effect, directly comparing the behavior
of reinforced and unreinforced embankments at the same
site is desirable, especially for those built-to-failure cases.
The test embankments analyzed in this paper were builtto-failure ones. The test section with six subsections was
270 m long in total and was constructed on a soft clay deposit at Lian-Yun-Gang in Eastern China. Among the six
subsections, two of them were built-to-failure; one was on
natural subsoil, and one was reinforced by a layer of
geotextile at the base of the embankment. The other four
subsections were built on a prefabricated vertical drain
(PVD) improved subsoil (Yang et al. 1999; Zhao 2000). This
paper describes the test results of the two built-to-failure
subsections. The subsoil conditions and the embankment
construction are presented first. The behavior of the two
built-to-failure embankments is compared and analyzed to
demonstrate the effect of reinforcement on (i) the FS of the
embankment; and (ii) the subsoil response. The results of a
laboratory model test of embankment on soft subsoil conducted at Saga University, Japan, are included in the discussion.
Built-to-failure embankments at Lian-YunGang, China

Subsoil condition at the test site
The test site is located in an alluvial plain, Lian-Yun-Gang
area, Jiangsu province, China (Fig. 1). The region belongs to
lowland with an altitude of 2.6 m. The ground water level
fluctuates between 0.5 and1.0 m below the ground surface.
The soil profile consists of a 2.0 m thick clay crust underlain
by a 8.5 m thick soft clay layer (called mucky clay in
China). Below the soft layer there are medium-to-stiff sandy
clay and silt sand layers. The physical and mechanical properties of the soft deposit are summarized in Fig. 2, which indicates that a weak zone exists at a depth of 26 m. The top
crust is at an overconsolidated state due to weathering and
aging. Below 2.0 m, the soil is in a normal to slightly
overconsolidated state with an overconsolidation ratio, OCR,
839
Fig. 1. The test site at Lian-Yun-Gang City, China.
of 1.04~1.07. The sensitivity is generally 25. At depths

around 3.0 m, it is more than 10.0 (Yang et al. 1999; Zhao
2000).
Construction of test embankments
The two built-to-failure embankments each had a length
of 45 m. The embankments had a base width of 42 m. After
placing a 0.5 m thick sand mat, a berm with a width of about
8.0 m was left on both sides and the embankments were
built to failure. The embankments had a 1V:1.75H slope.
The fill material was sandy clay. The unit weight of the
compacted fill material was about 19 kN/m3. The average
filling rate was about 0.1 m/day. The embankment on natural
subsoil failed at a fill thickness of 4.04 m and at 4.35 m for
the geotextile reinforced case. The embankments were instrumented with surface settlement gauges, piezometer
points, and casings for lateral displacement measurement.
The embankment geometry, the location of reinforcement,
and the main instrumentation points for the geotextile reinforced embankment are illustrated in Fig. 3. Two types of
geotextiles were used. The first was a woven polypropylene
geotextile with a unit weight of 303 g/m2. The in-air tensile
strength from wide-width strip testing (ASTM 1994) was
40 kN/m and the failure strain was about 18% at a strain rate
of 2 %/min. The second type was a heat-bounded nonwoven
geotextile with a unit weight of 260.8 g/m2. The in-air tensile strength from wide-width strip testing was 38.5 kN/m
and the failure strain was about 20%.
FEM analysis
To investigate the effect of reinforcement on the stress
strain distribution in soft subsoil, the Lian-Yun-Gang embankments were analyzed using the finite element method
(FEM). The subsoil and embankment fill material were represented by 8-node quadrilateral and 6-node triangular elements, and the reinforcement by 3-node bar elements. A
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840
Can. Geotech. J. Vol. 39, 2002
Fig. 2. The index and mechanical properties of the subsoil. wn, natural water content (%); Ip, plasticity index; LI, liquidity index; t,
unit weight; e0, void ratio; Cc, compression index; Su, field vane shear strength; kh and kv, horizontal and vertical hydraulic conductivities from laboratory testing, respectively; St, sensitivity.
Fig. 3. Embankment geometry and the main instrumentation

points.
The value of Poissons ratio was assumed to be between

0.25 and 0.3. The values of the hydraulic conductivities
given in Table 1 are back-calculated values, and they are
eight times the selected values indicated in Fig. 2. This is
because laboratory tests normally underestimate the field
values (Tavenas et al. 1986; Chai and Miura 1999). In the
analysis, the hydraulic conductivity is varied with the void
ratio, e, according to Taylors equation (Taylor 1948).
[1]
layer of 0.1 m thick solid elements represents the soilreinforcement interface. These thin 8-node solid elements can
simulate a shear band of 0.05 m thickness.
The soft subsoil was divided into five layers and the mechanical behavior was represented by the modified Cam Clay
model (Roscoe and Burland 1968). The adopted model parameters are listed in Table 1. The available test data shown
in Fig. 2 (Yang et al. 1999; Zhao 2000) were used to determine the model parameters. Referring to reported test data in
this region (Sun and Zhen 1984) and based on the writers
experience, a friction angle of 25 (M = 1, where M is the
strength parameter for the Cam Clay model) was adopted for
the mucky clay layer. For stiff sandy clay and silty sand, =
35 was assumed. The value of was taken as 1/10 of the
value of , where and are the slope of the rebound line
and the slope of the virgin consolidation line in the e lnp
plot, respectively.
k = k010 ( e0 e )/ C k
where k0 is the initial hydraulic conductivity, e0 is the initial

void ratio, k is the current hydraulic conductivity, e is the
current void ratio, and Ck is a constant (Ck = 0.5e0, Tavenas
et al. 1986).
The adopted initial stress, water pressure, and the size of
the yield locus are tabulated in Table 2. To estimate the size
of the yield locus, the field vane shear strength was used, so
that, with the adopted initial stress, the size of the yield locus could be adjusted to yield a theoretical undrained shear
strength from the modified Cam Clay model equal to the
corrected field vane shear strength (multiplied by a factor of
0.8). It will be presented in a later section that 0.8 is a backcalculated value.
The fill material was sandy clay. A hyperbolic nonlinear
elastic model (Duncan et al. 1980) was used to simulate the
behavior of the backfill in the drained condition. The parameters were assumed by referring to the test data collected by
Duncan et al. (1980) (Table 3).
The tensile forcedisplacement relationship of reinforcement was modeled using the linear elastic-perfectly plastic
model. Before yielding, the adopted stiffnesses per meter
width were K = 800 and 1600 kN/m, and the strength was
40 kN/m. Two stiffness values were used to investigate the
effect of reinforcement stiffness. It is generally agreed that
the soil confinement will increase the friction resistance between the fabrics of the geotextile and therefore, the stiffness
of the geotextile. Miura and Chai (1999) proposed a method
for determining the in-soil stiffness of geotextiles by combining a small-scale soilgeotextile interface shear test with
a large-scale pullout test results. The reported data showed
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Chai et al.
841
Table 1. Model parameter used in FEM analysis for subsoil.
Depth
(m)
Youngs
modulus,
E (kPa)
Poissons
ratio,
0.02.0
2.04.5
4.57.5
7.510.5
10.515.5
36 000
0.30
0.30
0.30
0.30
0.25
0.015
0.024
0.021
0.013
Strength
parameter,
M
Initial void
ratio, e0
Unit weight,
(kN/m3)
0.15
0.24
0.21
0.13
1.0
1.0
1.0
1.0
1.40
1.82
1.68
1.30
0.84
17.0
15.5
16.3
17.7
19.0
Vertical
hydraulic
conductivity,
kv (m/s, 108)
2.90
0.89
0.69
0.55
11.0
Horizontal hydraulic
conductivity, kh
(m/s, 108)
5.98
1.69
1.37
1.09
21.5
Table 2. Initial stresses and the size of the yield locus.

Depth (m)
0.0
0.6
2.0
4.5
7.5
10.5
15.5
x0 (kPa)
y0 (kPa)
5.00
6.63
13.00
16.88
26.33
37.88
72.45
0.00
10.20
20.00
33.75
52.65
75.75
120.75
Pore pressure,
u0 (kPa)
0
0
14
39
69
99
149
Size of yield
locus, p0 (kPa)
105
85
60
40
80
150
Sand layer
Table 3. Hyperbolic model parameters for fill material.

Cohesion,
C (kPa)
Friction
angle, ()
Modulus
number, k
Modulus
exponent, n
Failure ratio,
Rf
Bulk modulus
number, kb
Bulk modulus
exponent, m
Unit weight,
t (kN/m3)
5.0
25.0
570
0.49
0.92
1050
0.49
19.0
that for tensile strains within 3~5%, the in-soil stiffness was
2~3 times that of the in-air one. Beyond this limiting strain,
the in-soil tangent stiffness was the same as the in-air value.
The stiffness values of K = 800 and 1600 kN/m are about
two and four times that of the in-air stiffness for tensile
strains less than 5%.
The mesh used in the analysis is shown in Fig. 4. The
modeled range was 15.5 m deep from the ground surface
and horizontally 100 m away from the embankment centerline. One hundred metres is about five times the embankment half width, which is considered adequate to
substantially reduce the boundary effects. The displacement
boundary conditions were as follows: at bottom, both vertical and horizontal displacements were fixed; and at left (under the embankment centerline) and right (away from the
centerline) vertical boundaries, the horizontal displacement
was fixed, but vertical movement was allowed. The drainage
boundary conditions were that the ground surface and bottom (sand layer) lines were drained, and other boundaries
were undrained.
Applying embankment elements layer by layer simulated
the construction of the embankment. For this case, since the
fill thickness is specified, the node coordinates, including
those of the unconstructed embankment elements, were
updated at the end of each increment to consider large deformation phenomenon (Chai and Bergado 1993). Construction
histories were closely simulated as show in Fig. 6. The load
increment used was equivalent to about 0.05 m fill thickness.
For both the modified Cam Clay model (Roscoe and
Fig. 4. Finite element mesh in the analysis.
Burland 1968) and the hyperbolic nonlinear elastic model

(Duncan et al. 1980), a substepping technique (Sloan 1987)
was used to integrate the stressstrain relationship. With the
substepping technique, the failure state of the embankment
could be identified (Potts et al. 1990; Chai et al. 1998). The
failure state is defined with a predefined tolerance error
limit, where the numerical convergence could not be obtained within the predefined maximum number of iterations.
In this analysis, the criterion for convergence was defined
such that the unbalanced force at any node was not to exceed 1% of the maximum nodal force, and the maximum
number of iterations used was 50. Although these numbers
are arbitrary, the analysis indicated that the failure height of
the embankment is not sensitive to these numbers.
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842
Fig. 5. Failure surfaces from field observations and in slip circle
analysis.

Fig. 6. Surface settlement versus elapsed time curves. (Under the
center of the embankment.)
Field measurement and FEM analysis results

Failure fill thickness and failure surface
The field measured failure fill thickness is 4.35 m for the
reinforced case and 4.04 m for the unreinforced case. In the
analysis, the modeled strength of the subsoil was adjusted
(slightly changing the yield locus) in such a way that the analyzed failure fill thickness for the unreinforced case was the
same as the field value of 4.04 m. The reinforced case was
then analyzed and yielded a failure fill thickness of 4.25 m,
which was 0.10 m less than the field value. It is considered
that the FEM analysis simulated the field performance of the
embankments reasonably well.
To illustrate the effect of reinforcement on the embankment failure height, an analysis using conditions similar to
the reinforced case but without reinforcement (referred to as
the assumed case) was conducted. The numerical results revealed that, for the assumed case, the failure fill thickness
was the same as the reinforced case. Although there is some
argument as to whether the definition used in judging the
embankment failure state really represents the field case, the
analysis indicates that the difference in failure fill thicknesses of the test embankments may not be due to the effect
of reinforcement alone. The slight difference in the construction schedules may also have contributed to the difference in
the embankment failure fill thicknesses, as degree of consolidation increases with a longer construction period.
Since it is not convenient to obtain a FS value from the
FEM analysis, the limit equilibrium analysis was conducted
to quantify the effect of reinforcement on the FS value of the
embankment. The result indicates that the reinforcement
may only increase the FS of the embankment by less than
0.055. These details will be presented later. A symmetric
failure pattern was observed in the field, i.e., the embankments failed on both sides. The observed failure surfaces are
illustrated in Fig. 5. The estimated depth of the failure surface is about 5~6 m. The observed failure surfaces are not
much different with and without geotextile reinforcement.
This supports the hypothesis in conventional stability analysis that the existence of a geotextile reinforcement does not
alter the failure surface very much.
Surface settlement
The measured and simulated surface settlement time
curves under the embankment centerline, together with the
embankment construction histories are shown in Fig. 6. For
the reinforced case, up to just before failure, the FEM analysis simulated the field value fairly well. However, for the
unreinforced case, the analysis overpredicted the field value.
The following observations can be made from the figure:
(i) before the fill thickness exceeded 2.0 m, the settlement

was small; the top crust was stiffer and when the surcharge
load was less than the yield stress of the crust, the crust limited the subsoil deformation; (ii) when the embankment approached the failure state, the settlement was rapidly
increased due to lateral distortion of the subsoil; and
(iii) just before failure, the measured data shows that the
geotextile reinforcement slightly reduced the settlement rate.
It is reasoned that the combination of geotextile (strong in
tension) and top crust (strong in compression) improved the
contribution of the top crust to the embankment stability.
Lateral displacement
The lateral displacement profiles of the reinforced case
are given in Fig. 7. For the unreinforced case, the measured
data are not available. It indicates that the lateral displacement was small before the fill thickness reached 4.35 m
(failure occurred). Before failure, the simulated values
overpredict the measured values, and when the failure state
is reached, the simulation underpredicts the field values at
near ground surface. Generally, FEM analysis yielded a poor
simulation on lateral deformation. This is partially due to the
fact that the adopted soil model may not fully represent the
behavior of the subsoil and partially due to the limitation of
the FEM analysis in simulating large deformation at the
close-to-failure state. Comparing the assumed case
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Chai et al.
Fig. 7. Lateral displacement profiles. (Under the toe of the embankment.)
(unreinforced) and the reinforced case at the same fill thickness, it can be seen that for a lower fill thickness (2.6 m),
there are very small differences in lateral displacement.
However, when the fill thickness was increased to approach
the failure thickness, the lateral displacement of the assumed
case gradually became larger than the reinforced case. Thus,
the confining effect of reinforcement is apparent. Figure 8
gives the measured variation of the ratio of lateral displacement settlement versus embankment fill thickness. This
case history also clearly indicates that when the embankment approaches failure, the lateral displacement settlement ratio increases rapidly. These results support the
proposal made by Matsuo and Kawamura (1977) for assessing the stability of embankment over soft subsoil.
Excess pore pressures
Variations of excess pore pressure at 2.0, 4.5 (4.4 m for
the unreinforced case), and 7.5 m depths under the embankment centerline are given in Figs. 9a and 9b for the reinforced and the unreinforced cases, respectively. Generally,
the FEM analyses simulated the field data well. When the
fill thickness was less than about 2.5 m, the measured data
showed that during rest (consolidation) periods between the
two load increments, there was a tendency of dissipation of
excess pore pressure due to the consolidation effect. When
the fill thickness was more than about 2.5 m, even during the
rest period, field data showed that there was no change in
the excess pore pressure at 4.5 and 7.5 m depths. When the
fill thickness approached 4.0 m, there was an obvious increase in excess pore pressure during the rest period. However, the FEM analysis failed to simulate this phenomenon
because it did not consider the creep behavior of the subsoil.
The explanation for this is that due to the progressive development of shear strain in the subsoil, the shear induced excess pore pressure increment was larger than the partial
dissipation effect. Also, when the subsoil approaches the
failure state, the coefficient of consolidation is reduced due
to a reduction of the soil stiffness, which reduces the dissipation rate of excess pore pressure. The measured excess
pore pressure versus fill thickness is given in Fig. 10 for the
843
Fig. 8. Lateral displacement over settlement ratio.
4.5 m depth in the reinforced case and for the 4.4 m depth in
the unreinforced case, respectively. The rate of excess pore
pressure development is increased with the increase in fill
thickness, which can be explained by looking at the inset in
Fig. 10. The shear induced excess pore pressure will increase rapidly with an increase in shear stress level. The
continuous development of excess pore pressure under constant surcharge loading can be considered as an indicator of
embankment instability. The tendency shown in Figs. 9 and
10 supports the proposal made by Tavenas and Leroueil
(1980) on excess pore pressure development in soft subsoil
under embankment loading.
Mobilized tensile force in reinforcement
Figure 11 depicts the calculated tensile forces in the
geotextile. Just before embankment failure, for the case
where the stiffness K = 1600 kN/m, the maximum tensile
force is 36 kN/m, which is about 90% of the tensile strength.
The corresponding mobilized tensile strain is 2.3%. For the
case where K = 800 kN/m, the mobilized maximum tensile
force is 23 kN/m and about 60% of the tensile strength. The
corresponding mobilized tensile strain is 3%. We consider
that the FEM analysis can only simulate the prefailure state,
but not the failure process accompanying large deformation.
In the field, the rupture of the reinforcement was observed.
However, we believe that the rupture might be a postfailure
phenomenon, i.e., it was ruptured due to larger deformation
of the embankment after failure.
Rowe and Soderman (1985) discussed the strain compatibility between reinforcement and soil and pointed out that
the allowable compatible strain, which is the tensile strain
for design reinforcement, is a function of both the subsoil
properties and the geometry of the embankment. From their
finite element analysis results, the allowable compatible
strain is in a range of 19%. After reviewing some of the
published data, Bonaparte and Christopher (1987) suggested
that the allowable strain is mainly controlled by the subsoil
properties. The recommended values are 2~3% for sensitive
subsoil, 4~6% for medium- to low-sensitive subsoil, and
6~10% for nonsensitive plastic subsoil. The mobilized
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844
Fig. 9. Excess pore pressure variation.
Fig. 10. Excess pore pressure versus fill thickness.
Fig. 11. Tensile force in the geotextile just before embankment

failure.
tensile strain from the FEM numerical analysis is within the

range suggested by Rowe and Soderman (1985).
Discussion
Effect of reinforcement on the FS of the embankment
Practically, the limiting equilibrium method is used in analyzing the FS of the embankment on soft subsoil. The key
point is how to select a proper mobilized strength of subsoil,
as well as fill material. In the field, the failure surface is
formed gradually, i.e., progressive failure. Also, due to the
strain softening characteristics of most natural clay deposits
and cracks occurring in the fill material, determining the
mobilized strength at failure is a complicated task. For the
purpose of discussing the effect of reinforcement on the FS

of the embankment, the values of soil strength listed in Table 4 were used. The subsoil strength was vane shear
strength multiplied by a factor of 0.8. With the strength
given in Table 4, FS values of 1.0 and 1.01 were obtained
for embankments with and without reinforcement, respectively. Most proposed methods for analyzing the FS of reinforced embankments on soft subsoil (e.g., Milligan and
Rochelle 1984; Rowe and Soderman 1985) only consider the
restoring moment due to the mobilized reinforcement tensile
force. This is because with a total stress analysis, reinforcement may not increase the undrained shear strength of the
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Chai et al.
845
Table 4. Strengths for the stability analysis.

Depth (m)
Su (kPa)
0.01.0
1.02.0
2.03.0
3.04.0
4.05.0
5.06.0
6.07.0
Fill material
24.0
16.0
7.6
8.0
9.2
10.6
12.0
c = 5.0 kPa, = 25.0
subsoil very much. The same assumption was adopted in analyzing the reinforced embankment here. The mobilized tensile force of 23 kN/m (corresponding to a reinforcement
stiffness of K = 800 kN/m) with a horizontal orientation was
assumed. The analysis revealed the following. (i) A tensile
force of 23 kN/m can only increase the FS by about 0.035.
An in-air tensile strength from the wide-width strip test of
40 kN/m, resulted in an increase of 0.055. The absolute
value of the increase in the FS due to reinforcement is related to the magnitude of the sliding mass. If the amount of
mobilized tensile force is the same, the smaller the sliding
mass, the larger the effect. (ii) The same increase in the FS
can be obtained by increasing the strength of the subsoil by
about 0.5 kPa (about a 5% increase). Ladd (1991) proposed
an empirical equation for estimating the undrained shear
strength (Su) of clay as follows:
[2]
Su = S(OCR)m v
where S and m are constants, OCR is the overconsolidation

ratio, and v is the vertical effective stress. Normally, the
value of S is in a range of 0.2~0.3, and m is from 0.75 to
1.0. Using S = 0.3, m = 0.8, and OCR = 1.0, an increase of
0.5 kPa in strength requires an increase in effective vertical
stress of about 2 kPa. Reducing the construction speed or using the vertical drain improvement can provide this amount
of increase in the vertical effective stress. At the same site,
PVD improved subsections with a fill thickness of 6.5 m
(about 1.5 times that of the test reinforced embankment), did
not show any sign of embankment instability (Zhao 2000).
Effect of reinforcement on the subsoil response
Stress path analysis for elements directly under the
reinforcement
Figure 7 shows that when the embankment approaches to
failure, there is a difference in lateral displacement for both
the reinforced case and the assumed case (without reinforcement). It is of interest to check the effect of reinforcement
on the stress path of soil elements directly under the reinforcement.
Figure 12 shows the stress path for a subsoil element directly under the reinforcement and adjacent to the embankment centerline. Since the soil under the reinforcement is
within the top crust and in an overconsolidated state, the effective stress path reaches the critical state from the dry
side. This indicates that under an equal mean effective stress
(p), the reinforcement reduced the deviator stress (q), or for
the same deviator stress condition, reinforcement increased
the confining stress (effective mean stress). Also, this differ-
Fig. 12. Effective stress path of element A.
ence increased with an increase in embankment loading. The

amount of this kind of restraining effect is a function of the
relative stiffnessstrength of the reinforcement and the subsoil, the mobilized stress level in the subsoil, the soilreinforcement interface property, and the thickness of the
elements adjacent to the reinforcement.
Figure 13 is used to illustrate why the effect of reinforcement on subsoil deformation increases when the embankment approaches failure. Normally, the stressstrain curve of
soil is nonlinear. We assume that the reinforcement can reduce a certain amount of shear stress () on a soil element.
At P-1 (in Fig. 13), with a higher FS value (about 1.2), the
reduction of shear stress can result in a reduction in shear
strain of 1. However, at P-2 with a value of FS close to
unity, can result in a larger shear strain reduction 2
(i.e., 2 > > 1).
Test results for the laboratory model
Since the measured field data are limited and the field
conditions for the reinforced and the unreinforced cases
might be not completely identical, a laboratory model test
was conducted at Saga University, Japan, to further clarify
the effect of reinforcement on subsoil deformation. For a 1 g
model test, it is not easy to introduce embankment failure by
adding fill material. For convenience sake, a surcharge was
applied. Although this is different from an embankment on
soft subsoil in the field, the main purpose here is to qualitatively show the effect of reinforcement on subsoil deformation. The set-up of the model test is illustrated in Fig. 14. A
model box made with transparent acrylic has an inner dimension of 1.5 m in length, 0.6 m in width, and 0.8 m in
height. An acrylic plate was fixed in the middle of the box
along the direction of the length to form two separated submodel boxes with a width of 0.3 m. Two layers of
geotextiles were placed at the bottom and two end vertical
boundaries as drainage layers. To measure the lateral displacement, paper grids were put on the inner side of both
side-walls (transparent) using silicon grease. Three clay
2002 NRC Canada
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846
Fig. 13. Illustration of the nonlinear shear stressstrain response.
Fig. 15. Settlement versus elapsed time curves for the model test.
Fig. 14. Illustration of model test set-up.
Fig. 16. Lateral displacement profiles for the model test.
layers and two thin sand layers formed the model ground.
The thickness was about 150 mm for each clay layer and
about 30 mm for each sand layer. The clay used was remolded
Ariake clay with a water content of about 130~140% (larger
than the liquid limit of about 105%). The plastic limit was
about 57%. The model ground was consolidated under a
10 kPa dead load for about 2 months. After primary consolidation was finished, the dead load was removed and the soil
was sampled for strength and compressibility tests. The test
results indicate that the model ground had a compression index (Cc) of about 0.8, a void ratio (e) of about 3.0, and an
undrained shear strength (Su) of 4.55.5 kPa (laboratory
vane shear test).
Model embankments with a height of 50 mm and a base

width of 700 mm were built on both sub-models using sand
as fill material. However, one sub-model had one layer of
geogrid between the model ground and the embankment.
The geogrid used had a grid size of 6 mm by 6 mm and a
tensile strength of 5.2 kN/m (strain rate 1%/min). The stiffness was about 300 kN/m for a less than 1% tensile strain
condition. Considering the scale of the model (about 1/20 to
1/30 of the prototype), the reinforcement was very stiff and
strong and it can be regarded as fully reinforced (Jewell
1988). On top of the model embankment, a 100-mm wide
loading plate was placed at the center. The load was applied
stepwise by air pressure through a bello-frame cylinder with
an increment of 15 kPa and the loading duration for each increment was about one week. The same loading condition
was maintained for both sub-models.
These model tests were analyzed by FEM with the same
techniques as described previously. The measured, as well as
the FEM simulated, settlement variations and lateral displacement profiles (up to 60 kPa loading) are given in
Figs. 15 and 16, respectively. Figure 15 shows that for loads
up to 45 kPa, the settlements for both the reinforced and the
2002 NRC Canada
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Chai et al.
Fig. 17. (a) The shear stress level (SL) in the subsoil of the
model test without reinforcement. (b) The shear stress level (SL)
in the subsoil of the model test with reinforcement.
847
unreinforced cases are identical. After the load reached

45 kPa, the settlement difference was clearly observed. At
the surface of the model ground, the undrained shear
strength was about 5.2 kPa, and the plasticity theory gives
an undrained bearing capacity of about 27 kPa. Taking into
account the effect of partial consolidation during the loading
period and the stress spreading effect of the model embankment, a bearing capacity of about 4050 kPa can be roughly
estimated. When the load increased to 45 kPa, for the
unreinforced case, the subsoil was close to failure. For the
reinforced case, due to the restraining effect of the geogrid,
the surface soil still did not fail. Therefore, the settlement
difference of the two cases is obvious. When the load was
increased further to 60 kPa, the settlement difference increased rapidly, which was mainly due to the difference of
lateral displacement as indicated in Fig. 16. The model test
results clearly illustrated that (i) when the FS value is large,
even with very stiff and strong reinforcement, there is no noticeable effect on subsoil deformation; and (ii) when the FS
value is close to 1.0 for the unreinforced case, the reinforcement can have considerable benefit on reducing the lateral
deformation of the subsoil if the reinforcement is stiff and
strong enough.
To further illustrate this point, simulated shear stress level
(SL) distributions in model ground just after applying the
45 kPa load are compared in Figs. 17a and 17b. It indicates
that for the unreinforced case, the failure zone (SL = 1.0)
reached the surface of the model ground, but for the reinforced case, the value of SL at the surface of the model
ground is about 0.9. However, for both cases, there was not
much difference in the failure zone inside the model ground.
Conclusions
The results of test embankments with and without
geotextile reinforcement on the soft clay deposit in LianYun-Gang, China, are reported. The field data together with
FEM analyses revealed the following:
(1) Geotextile reinforcement can increase the FS value of
the embankment on soft deposits. The magnitude of the effect is a function of the mobilized tensile force in the reinforcement and the geometry of the embankment. For the
case studied here, limit equilibrium analysis results show
that the geotextile reinforcement may only increase the FS
value by less than 0.055.
(2) Base reinforcement will only have a beneficial effect
on subsoil deformation when the unreinforced case approaches failure. At a working state with a factor of safety of
1.21.3, both the field full-scale test and the laboratory
model test results indicate that there was no obvious effect
of reinforcement on subsoil deformation.
(3) FEM analysis result show that the restraining effect of
reinforcement can reduce the deviator stress of the soil elements directly under the reinforcement. This effect increases
with an increase in embankment loading.
(4) The field measurements indicate that the rates of lateral displacement and excess pore pressure development in
the subsoil are sensitive indicators of embankment stability.
2002 NRC Canada
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848
Acknowledgements
This work was started in June 1999 when Prof. Can-Wen
Yang (from the China Academy of Railway Sciences) had
his sabbatical stay at the Institute of Lowland Technology,
Saga University, Japan. He passed away in November 1999.
This paper is a memorial to Prof. Can-Wen Yang. The laboratory model test results reported were conducted by Mr. K.
Maeda, a former graduate student of Saga University, Japan.
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