There is not one generally accepted approach for the design of geogrid-reinforced pile-supported (GRPS) embankments. Relevant mechanisms include arching of the embankment material, but also the effect of geogrid reinforcement and potentially a contribution from the underlying subsoil. This paper presents a simple design approach to identify the contribution of all three mechanisms, in which the contribution of multi-layered geogrid reinforcement is also presented. To validate the theoretical predictions for the effect of geogrid reinforcement and the potential contribution of underlying subsoil, a series of three-dimensional finite element analyses are conducted. It is found that a point of ‘maximum arching’ is increased with the height of embankment. This study also presents that the reinforcement could reduce the ultimate stress on the subsoil. However, this requires significant sag of the reinforcement. It is found that the sag of reinforcement is very sensitive to the span of the reinforcement between piles, but relatively insensitive to the stiffness of the reinforcement. For a case with three layers of geogrid, the upper two grids carry relatively little tension compared to the bottom layer. This in turn leads to an approximate but simple equation of vertical equilibrium which may be of use in design.

土工格栅加筋桩支撑（GRPS）路堤的设计没有一种公认的方法。相关机制包括路堤材料的拱形，还包括土工格栅加固的效果以及潜在的地下土壤的贡献。本文提出了一种简单的设计方法来确定所有三种机制的作用，其中还提出了多层土工格栅加固的作用。为了验证土工格栅加固效果和下层地下土的潜在贡献的理论预测，进行了一系列三维有限元分析。结果发现，“最大拱形”点随着路堤的高度增加而增加。这项研究还表明，加筋可以减少地基上的极限应力。但是，这需要大量的下垂。发现钢筋的垂度对钢筋在桩之间的跨度非常敏感，但是对钢筋的刚度不敏感。对于具有三层土工格栅的情况，与底层相比，上部的两个格栅承受的张力较小。反过来，这导致一个近似但简单的垂直平衡方程式，可能在设计中使用。