The use of soft grounds to develop new lands is increasing due to the expansion of social overhead capital(SOC) and the increasing demand for public facilities. When constructing embankment or structures on soft grounds, stability issues frequently oc...
The use of soft grounds to develop new lands is increasing due to the expansion of social overhead capital(SOC) and the increasing demand for public facilities. When constructing embankment or structures on soft grounds, stability issues frequently occur due to lateral flow of the structure, slope failure, etc., caused by excessive settlement. The Current lateral flow evaluation methods are mainly used during the design stage to assess the possibility of lateral flow. However, studies on evaluating the possibility of lateral flow during actual constructions on site are lacking.
In this study, out of the proposed lateral flow evaluation methodsused to determine the root causes of slope and road embankment failuresand lateral flow of bridge structures on soft grounds, the methods proposed by Tschebotarioff(1973) and Tavenas et al.(1979) were used to determine their practical applicability in the construction field. To this end, additional soil samples were collected and tested to analyze the engineering characteristics of the ground, and the same consolidation analysis during the design stage was then conducted to analyze the correlation between settlement and horizontal displacement. In addition, the laboratory test results and field measurements were compared to confirm if the consolidation settlement and shear strength of the ground increase after embankment construction, which were evaluated during the design stage. The results were compared to determine whether they were consistent with those obtained on site. Based on the results, the relationships between the overburden pressure and undrained shear strength of soft ground, and between the measured settlement and horizontal displacement according to the change in embankment height were investigated to evaluate lateral flow. In addition, to investigate the effect of unit weight of embankment material on lateral flow, the methods proposed by Tschebotarioff(1973) and Tavenas et al.(1979) were used to assess their practical applicability and consistency with real-world practice.
When the consolidation exceeded 90%, lateral flow was determined using the method proposed by Tschebotarioff(1973), which was based on the relationship between the overburden pressure change and undrained shear strength according to the embankment height. Based on the results, the original ground before the embankment appeared to be stable, as indicated by the value below the reference line of Py=3.0Cu. However, as the overburden load increased, the overburden pressure in the entire section was 3.14∼5.14 times the undrained shear strength. Hence, it can be said that the ground experienced shear deformation and lateral flow. By evaluating the lateral flow using the method proposed by Tavenas et al.(1979), which was based on the relationship between the actual settlement and horizontal displacement on site, the location with the least horizontal displacement showed stable ground status, as indicated by the value below the lower limit of the proposed empirical formula.
The values for two of the three areas with large horizontal displacement were distributed between the lower and the upper limits, indicating that shear deformation began to ocCur. The value for the location with the largest horizontal displacement exceeded the upper limit, and the ground is said to experience lateral flow due to shear failure. By analyzing the effect of the change in embankment material on the lateral flow by varying the unit weight in four stages, the overburden pressure was found to exceed the shear strength as the unit weight increased, resulting in shear failure of the ground because the overburden pressure was more than 5.14 times the undrained shear strength.
The above results show that the lateral flow evaluation methods proposed by Tschebotarioff(1973) and Tavenas et al.(1979) are in good agreement with those of field case studies. There fore, construction management can be fulfilled economically and safely by preventing lateral flow if the possibility of lateral flow can be determined by performing field measurements prior to constructing embankment or structures on soft grounds.