Dynamic Response Analysis of Highway Embankments

As the severity and the occurrence rate of natural disasters, such as earthquakes, increases; highway embankments become more susceptible to related hazards. However, highway embankments are considered to be an important lifeline which must be in continuous operation under any circumstances. In light of the recent advances and latest research, geosynthetics can successfully and effectively be used to reinforce highway embankments against the primary and secondary effects of earthquake induced damages. It is important to estimate the approximate dynamic behaviour of engineering structures via numerical simulations before the experimental studies. This study covers numerical modelling of the dynamic response of full-scale highway embankments using the Mobile Seismic Shaker (MSS) in the field as a dynamic source. This numerical simulation phase has been used to ensure the true structural design and true instrumentation. The numerical simulations have been performed implementing the FEM technique using PLAXIS 2D software and includes the dynamic response analysis of dimensionally identical unreinforced and geogrid reinforced highway embankment models. Revealed numerical results clearly show that, geogrid reinforcement can successfully reduce the total displacements and transmitted accelerations at crest level which are key structural performance indicators.