Ground improvement using SPVD and RPE

Abstract

Excessive total and differential settlement at the intersection of a surcharged prefabricated vertical drain (SPVD) and a rigid piled embankment on soft ground during the post-construction period leads to considerable time and costs being spent on repetitive remedial works in the future. This paper presents a sustainable design approach for high and long embankment filling on soft clay at the approach to the structure by introducing the intersection of an SPVD at the transition to a rigid piled embankment in order to regulate the differential settlement between the two conventional ground treatment approaches. This paper also presents a full-scale field study to validate the performance of the intersection of the SPVD at the transition to the rigid piled embankment. By introducing the intersection ground treatment, post-construction settlement and differential settlement are minimised significantly, while the post-construction total settlement at the rigid transition piled embankment (TPE) zone is reduced significantly by about 80 to 95% of the total settlement, as compared to a conventional TPE.