Kinematics of piled embankments with defective piles

Defective piles within piled embankments have the ability to cause significant project delays and require costly remedial works. At present, the ability of the load transfer platform and embankment fill to redistribute loads away from defective piles and reduce differential settlements that develop between defective and non-defective piles is not well understood. Synchrotron X-ray computed tomography was performed on a small scale model piled embankment comprising a defective pile with digital volume correlation analysis implemented on pairs of reconstructed volumes to study the kinematics of soil arching above a defective pile. Results indicate that a plane of equal settlement can still develop above a defective pile.