Thinking outside the box: The time dependent behaviour of a reinforced embankment on soft soil

Applications of eco-friendly geotextiles are gaining a preference over traditional polymeric geotextiles as measures to reinforce earth embankments. Understanding the behaviour of these eco-friendly geotextiles sometimes known as limited life geotextiles (LLG) is in its infancy. This paper explains the behaviour of an embankment reinforced with Sisal fibre geotextiles constructed within a box. The diminishing need for geotextile is represented by an external load ‘outside the box’ which can be manually controlled depending on the rate of increasing foundation shear strength. The excess pore water pressure was observed ‘outside the box’ from the end of the construction of the embankment to the end of the consolidation by monitoring the height of the water in pipes ‘outside the box’.