Measured Settlements of Two Selected High Embankments Founded on Soft Soil

A detailed study has been performed of the settlements which occurred in the subsoils beneath two selected high embankments (the Pesnica connection embankment, and the Srmin high embankment), which were built as part of Slovenia's National Motorway Construction Programme. These embankments had to be built on very compressible subsoils of low bearing capacity and low permeability. Two measurement methods, using conventional settlement plates and a hydrostatic profile gauge which could be placed in specially installed measuring tubes, were used to obtain settlement profiles at several locations along the embankments. The results showed that the development of subsoil settlements at two selected locations of the Srmin embankment was very different, due to the heterogeneity and varying compressibility of the subsoil. The settlements of both embankments obtained by measurements using the hydrostatic profile gauge were very similar to those obtained using settlement plates, which were located close to the measuring tubes.