Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The construction of road and railway embankments adheres to strict specifications, particularly regarding stability and limited settlements. Consequently, their foundations must be designed to ensure satisfactory stress redistribution, preserving the integrity of the structure to prevent failures and large deformations. In this context, both physical and numerical models can provide a detailed evaluation of soil response and load transfer. This study compares the predictions from two-dimensional Finite Element Method (FEM) numerical analysis with those from a large scale instrumented physical model. The instrumentation included load cells at the head of one of the piles and total stress cells at various depths. After validating the results, analyses were conducted to compare predictions from different standard design methods. The vertical stress applied to the pile caps, total stresses, and efficiencies predicted by each model were examined. The results indicated that the method which best predicted both the stress at the pile cap and the model’s efficiency was the concentric arches.
Source: Frontiers in Built Environment
Authors: Juan Felix Rodriguez Rebolledo, Ennio Marques Palmeira, Gregório Luís Silva Araújo, Juliana Araujo da Cunha, José Melchior Filho
Institution: Universidade de Brasília
Language: English
Subfield: Civil and Structural Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,353
OpenAlex ID: W4415815975