Effect of reinforced sand cushion on the limit fill height of embankment on soft clay foundation

The method combining the large scale model test, the in situ test and the finite element simulation was used to analysis the effects of reinforced sand cushion on the bearing capacity and settlement of soft clay foundation. The in situ test embankment which loaded to fail was performed to verify the reasonableness of the finite model in this paper. The development trend of reinforcement tension was discussed too. The results indicate that the limit fill height of embankment on soft clay foundation can be significantly improved by using the reinforced sand cushion, but its contribution to reduce the settlement is not very obvious. In addition, the tensions of reinforcements in different layers increase with heightening of the filling height, and the maximum tensions of reinforcements of different layers are not obviously different to each other under the same fill height.