Experimental Study of Pile-Supported Embankment in the Framework of the French Research Project ASIRI+

The French national project ASIRI+ (2019–2024) is the extension of the ASIRI project (2005–2012) and aims to update previous recommendations for the design of soil reinforced by rigid inclusions. This project (https://​asiriplus.​fr/​) mobilized forty-three partners (practitioners and academics) to act for a better understanding of the behavior of the composite foundation that is a soft soil reinforced with vertical rigid inclusions with a load transfer platform on top of it. This load transfer platform is a very important component of the system and the efficiency of this technique depends on the quality of this platform. Two types of platforms can be installed on rigid inclusions: granular platform reinforced or not by geosynthetics and soil treated platform. Specific studies consisting of full-scale experimentations, centrifugation tests, and numerical simulations were carried out to analyze the mechanisms developed within these platforms and propose implementation rules and design methods according to the type of loading applied (static loads, traffic loads, etc.). This paper focuses on load transfer platform under static load. This paper presents an experimental study on load transfer platforms in pile-supported embankments.