Numerical analysis of a piled embankment under earthquake loading

Earthquakes produce massive damage in the road embankment especially if the embankment based on soft subsoil, and this damage which in turn causes great economic losses for maintenance and rehabilitation. Last decades Iraq and the surrounding region faced many earthquakes where the most powerful earthquake happened in 2017 near the Iraq-Iran border specifically at “Halabjah” city. Thus engineers have been focusing on their road embankment design to sustain such earthquakes, by using piles as a foundation for the superstructure. In this research a numerical study for the piled embankment subjected to seismic excitation using three dimensional PLAXIS finite element program]. The effect of changing the pile supporting condition and the pile diameter on the embankment stability under “Halabjah” earthquake is investigated. The results shows that using piles reduces the settlement of the embankment’s crest by about 77% if the supporting condition of the piles was floating and in the case of the end bearing and anchored piles the reduction in the crest’s settlement were 88% and 94% respectively.