Foundations of road-beds, embankments and earth dams

The construction of an embankment on soft or saturated soil presents problems associated with the bearing capacity of the soil and its differential settlement.

The bearing capacity of foundation soil is governed by its own soil shear strength. To increase the bearing capacity of soft soil, it’s necessary to place reinforcement layers at the base of the embankment. A more rigid and compact foundation is obtained by placing one or more layers of TENAX bi-oriented geogrids.

Geogrids are usually installed within a layer of granular material, so as to produce a supporting platform for the embankment’s weight. Such a structure also acts as a drainage system protecting the embankment from saturation and helps to decrease the interstitial pore water pressure on the base of the embankment.

The foundation soil shear strength, and consequentially its factor of safety, increases as consolidation proceeds. By combining the use of a TENAX TNT geocomposite with a bi-oriented the geogrid, an adequate filtration/drainage action is obtained, which is indispensable whenever the water needs to be drained from the base of the embankment.

The TENAX GEORAFT system maybe used when an embankment rests on a very soft, clayish layer and when plastic fracturing is expected.
This confinement system is then back-filled with granular material. By installing the TENAX GEORAFT system, it’s possible to construct a very rigid, free draining foundation layer, capable of forcing the potential failure surface to start vertically and thus driving it deeper into soft clay.

TENAX TNT geocomposite

TENAX GEORAFT Foundation System