Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 6.26
Pile embankment and transition zone.
A solution such as pile support would be too expensive for normal earth structures,
except for very high embankments such as bridge approaches. The later option (use of
individual pile caps rather than a continuous slab) minimizes the size of the pile cap
required and improves the economics. Even so these systems are still very costly. A
cost estimate by Greenacre (1996) was that geotextile-reinforced embankments were
five times more expensive than normal embankments, and piled embankments were
yet five times more expensive.
