Geosynthetic reinforced embankments on rate-sensitive cohesive soil deposits

Many soft clayey foundation soils exhibit strain rate dependent behaviour to varying degrees during laboratory and fieid loading conditions. Strain rate effects can in some cases be quite significant. In this paper, the Sackville test embankment is used to highlight the importance of considering strain rate effects when designing and modelling reinforced embankments on soft rate sensitive clayey foundation soils. Furthermore, calculated embankment behaviour using a coupled elasto-viscoplastic finite element model is compared with measured embankment behaviour and the effects of reinforcement stiffness on embankment behaviour are studied.