Piled embankments in the Netherlands;

how to decide, how to design?

Eekelen, Suzanne J.M. van1) and Venmans, Arjan A.M.2)
1)

Deltares, Technical University Delft, chair person Dutch CUR Task group Design Guideline
Piled Embankments
2)
Deltares and Technical University Delft
P.O. Box 177, 2600 MH Delft, The Netherlands, Suzanne.vanEekelen@Deltares.nl

KEYWORDS Piled embankments, decision support systems, road construction methods,

soft soils, design guideline, history

ABSTRACT In the thirties of the last century, public opinion and minimizing traffic
hindrance were carefully considered when making choices for road construction
methods in the Netherlands. Later, technical and financial considerations became more
leading and the public opinion less. Now, decision processes are changing further and
criteria as whole life costs and traffic hindrance are becoming more important again. In
addition, new construction methods, such as piled embankments, including their design
guidelines have become available.

The last years have brought decision support systems to quantify the impacts of choices,
making the selection process more transparent. A case study for the widening of the
highway A2, and in addition several successful examples show that a contractor is
stimulated to offer innovative solutions such as piled embankments when the principle
sets requirements for construction time, protection of vulnerable objects or a period of
maintenance for the contractor.
When design guidelines for these innovative solutions become available, like the
recently introduced Dutch Piled embankment Design Guideline, the application of these
techniques is further stimulated and the public demands are more easily fulfilled.

THE HISTORY OF ROAD CONSTRUCTION IN THE NETHERLANDS

During the last eight centuries, the Dutch have built nearly half of their
country themselves: the polders. Usually, the weak and compressible soil in
these polders gives major problems while constructing roads or railroads.
The subsoil typically consists of 6 to 18 meters of very soft and
compressible organic clay and peat deposits, and below that a firm stratum
of sand. The ground water is table just below ground surface. During many
centuries, the Dutch in these areas therefore mainly chose to travel by boat.

However, cars and trains were developed and the need for road and
railroads grew. So, the Dutch were faced with the problem of raising sand
embankments on ground that should be considered unsuitable. A project
that finally succeeded was the construction of the railroad between Gouda
and Schoonhoven, see figure 1.

FIG. 1

Railroad Gouda-Schoonhoven; construction 1855-1914, in service 1914-

1942

It took 59 years, from 1855 to 1914, to construct the around 16 km

long railway. Five times the scheduled amount of sand was needed to finish
it, which made 65 m3 sand per meter railroad. Finally, the trains have only
been in service during 28 years until 1942, when the occupier removed the
rail steel and melted it down for war purposes.

Need for wider and more reliable roads in the thirties of the last century,
source: www3.picturepush.com/photo/a/2223576/1024/Friese-B-nummerstrucks/12515.jpg
FIG. 2

Since the thirties of the last century, the need for more reliable and
wider roads increased with the development of more reliable diesel engines.
Keverling Buisman and his co-workers at the Dutch Institute for Soil
Mechanics developed several construction methods to build roads in the soft
Dutch polders (Heemstra, 2008). They for instance developed the road on a
lightweight embankment (dried peat), the road on piles (concrete slabs on
timber piles) and embankments reinforced with fascines. In order to prevent
rotting of the fascines, these mattresses needed to remain completely below
ground water table during their service life.

FIG. 3

Fascine mattress in construction

In 1937, Keverling Buisman considered both applying a fascine

mattress and a road on piles for the regional road N210 through the
Krimpenerwaard polder. He finally recommended constructing a piled road
to prevent high maintenance costs, and to prevent complaints and
unfavourable comments because of traffic hindrance. He thought that the
piled road would meet more appreciation. In other words, the public
opinion was important if not a leading aspect for Keverling Buisman.
Between 1950 and 1980 the Dutch highway network grew from
approximately 500 km to 3000 km. Construction of embankments on soft
soil became common practice, and a standard practice developed. There was
a gradual development in soil improvement from excavating and filling
cunettes, via installation of sand drains to installation of prefabricated
drains. Construction took years. Contracts were awarded on the basis of the
lowest price for a design prepared by the principal. Decisions were

motivated by technical considerations, not by the opinion of the general

public as in the days of Keverling Buisman.
Times changed. New materials became available. For example, the
development of geosynthetic reinforcement material made it possible to
combine fascine mattresses and piled roads with concrete slabs into piled
reinforced embankments. Newly developed guidelines give more security
and safety for these new construction types.
Times changed for the decision processes as well. More people and
more stakeholders have become involved. Road users cry out for solutions
for the growing traffic jams. Criteria such as whole life costs and traffic
hindrance are becoming more important again. Decision support systems
have been developed to quantify and keep track of the impacts of design
choices. Keverling Buisman would have welcomed this development!
This paper describes the current state-of-the-art in the Netherlands with
respect to selection of construction methods for embankments on soft soil,
with emphasis on the considerations related to piled embankments. In the
last decade, around 23 piled embankments have actually been constructed in
the Netherlands. Why were these actually built? In the beginning of 2010,
the Dutch Guideline for the design of piled embankments was introduced.
The clear design rules in this guideline give clarity, which makes decision
processes easier.
2

PILED EMBANKMENTS IN THE NETHERLANDS

In 1999, the construction of the first Dutch piled embankment started. Since
then, the Dutch have constructed around 22 piled embankments for roads. In
2008 the first railroad was build on a piled embankment (Van Duijnen en
Van Eekelen, 2010). The total area of these 23 piled embankments is around
300.000 m2.
From the 23 piled embankments, eight have been constructed for local
authorities (towns), six for the Dutch ministry of Public Works, five for
regional authorities (provinces) and the others for the Dutch Railways and a
knowledge institute. One of the most remarkable piled embankments is the
new N210 in the Krimpenerwaard polder, which is a 14 km long regional
road (Haring et al., 2008). The next chapter describes the main reasons for
the choice for this, and several other piled embankments.

MAKING A CHOICE FOR A ROAD CONSTRUCTION METHOD

3.1 Requirements

and demands

The choice for a method for road construction on soft and compressible soil
has serious implications for both construction phase and operation of the
road. Road users want the road to be available as soon as possible and do
not accept delays due to maintenance works.
In addition, when building in densely populated areas, owners of
nearby underground infrastructure or facilities do not want the construction
works to damage their property. However, the principal often has a limited
budget that is fixed in an early stage of the project.
These demands often are contradictory, as indicated in Table 1. The
table compares the impacts of three categories of construction methods
commonly used in the Netherlands. Prefabricated vertical drains are the
default option, combined with some extra meters of sand loading as
temporary surcharge. The temporary surcharge will reduce creep
settlements during the service life of the road. The Beaudrain and IFCO
methods use a combination of underpressure in the drains and forced
dewatering to apply a temporary surcharge to the soft soil, adding to the
effect of the sand surcharge. The principle of both piled embankments and
Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) embankments is to prevent the compaction of
the soft soil, thus eliminating settlements. Although EPS is also a good
construction method, this will not be considered further in this paper.
TABLE 1

QUALITATIVE COMPARISON OF THREE CATEGORIES OF CONSTRUCTION METHODS FOR ROAD

CONSTRUCTION ON SOFT SOIL

Impact of
construction
method
Construction time
Maintenance
Construction costs
Damage to nearby
structures

Traditional: prefabricated vertical

drains with temporary surcharge
long
frequent
low
additional measures
required

Beaudrain or IFCO
method with
temporary
surcharge
medium
frequent - medium
medium
can be avoided by
careful execution

Piled embankment /
EPS embankment
short
none
high
unlikely

No single method fulfils all requirements. Piled embankments meet the

demands of road users and local stakeholders best, but the construction is

generally more expensive for the principal. In the example of the N210,
strict requirements were set for creep settlements and the availability of the
existing very vulnerable road during construction. With these requirements,
and with inclusion of 20 years of maintenance in the contract, the piled
embankment came out as the most reliable solution with lowest overall cost.
Another example is the piled embankment of the railroad in Houten. Here,
very limited construction time was available, and with a vulnerable
foundation next to the railroad, an innovative solution was necessary. The
piled embankment again came out as the most reliable solution with lowest
overall costs.
However, the definition of lowest overall cost is not straightforward.
This is illustrated in the next paragraph for the widening of Dutch national
highway A2.
3.2 Case

study: widening highway A2

Highway A2 is one of the main North-South arteries of the Netherlands,

stretching 200 km from Amsterdam to Maastricht. The section between
Amsterdam and Utrecht persistently topped the chart of most congested
highways, causing an estimated loss of production of 50 million Euros
annually. It was decided to widen the existing 2x2 lane highway to 2x4
lanes, by building a new road embankment adjacent to the existing one.
Construction started in 2006, and will be completed in 2010.
The subsoil consists of 5 to 7 m of very weak and compressible peat
and organic clay deposits, with occasional buried sand channels of former
rivers. Embankments up to 8 m above ground level are required at
intersections with other infrastructure, some located at the weakest spots.
Construction settlements using conventional methods may be as large as 3
m; with a temporary surcharge of 4 m the total fill thickness reaches 15 m.
The time available for embankment filling and preloading is two years. In
this time, congestion is worse then ever because of the reduced width of the
lanes due to the construction works.
The project took off with the traditional construction method,
prefabricated vertical drains and temporary surcharge, selected for most
locations. For the high embankments, the Beaudrain and IFCO methods

were employed. However, application of piled embankments could have

reduced both construction time and congestion during construction
significantly. What would have been the additional costs? And why were
the piled embankments not preferred over the traditional methods, given the
huge benefits for the road users?
The usual approach to answer these questions is to make a design for
all construction options as basis for a cost estimate. This is often avoided
because this is time-consuming. However, the last years have brought
decision support systems to quantify the impacts of choices, making the
selection process more transparent. Computational power has increased
such that all calculations only take a few hours.
Most calculations for this case study were done with MRoad, a
decision support system dedicated to the selection of construction methods
for highways on soft soil (Venmans et al., 2005). Given the standard end
user requirements, construction time, subsoil and geometry data, the
program automatically performs settlement analysis for 8 common
construction methods. MRoad predicts maintenance actions for every
construction method, and the whole life costs for construction and
maintenance. The economic loss due to congestion during construction and
maintenance is not automatically calculated, but can be entered manually.
The case study concerns the widening in a 7 km subsection of the
project between the river Holendrecht and the town of Vinkeveen. The
subsection was characterized by 14 different combinations of subsoil
stratigraphy and road geometry. For every combination, the three
construction options presented in Table 1 have been compared. The centerto-center distance of the prefabricated vertical drains is 1 m; the thickness of
the temporary surcharge is 2 m. The case study assumes the application of
timber piles for the piled embankment. The high ground water table in the
area is ideal for timber piles, and timber piles may be more cost effective
than concrete piles.
Three sets of calculations have been compared, assuming a required
construction time of successively 2 years, 1 year and half a year. For every
set, a combination of the three construction methods was chosen, assuming
zero maintenance in the first 10 years after opening of the road. Figure 4
shows the results of the calculations.

FIG. 4

Construction methods selected for different construction times

When the principal requires a construction time of 2 years, most parts

of the project can be realized using the traditional construction method (red)
and Beaudrain or IFCO methods (yellow). Large quantities of sand are
required to compensate settlements and for the temporary surcharge, and
substantial quantities of temporary surcharge need to be removed again.
Piled embankments (green) are necessary only in places where the new
embankment crosses the existing road and no settlements are allowed.
If the principal would allow only 1 year for construction, the traditional
and Beaudrain / IFCO methods cannot fulfil the zero maintenance
requirement. Piled embankments are the only solution for transitions to
bridges with pile foundations and in areas with strong subsoil heterogeneity.
If only half a year is available for construction, piled embankments are
the only option. The logistics of sand transport alone prohibit other
construction methods.

The cost comparison learns that the acceleration of construction by one

and a half year would have required 8 million Euros. Asking each road user
for a fee of 0.25 Euro for one year would have raised this amount. The
Dutch economy looses 50 million Euros every year due to congestion on
highway A2 between Amsterdam and Utrecht. The subsection in the case
study covers one third of this, but it is clear that the profit for the Dutch
economy outweighs the additional construction costs for piled
embankments. In addition, to be effective as a criterion for selecting
construction methods, the overall costs should clearly include the profit
for society.
At the same time this academic case study was performed, the road
administration asked the contractor to reduce the construction time by one
year. The new design involved significant lengths of piled embankments,
probably resembling the 1 year option in Figure 4. It was for contractual,
not technical reasons that piled embankments were no part of the solution
finally adopted. The matter even led to questions in the Dutch parliament.
When asked why piled embankments were withheld, the Minister of
Transport regarded piled embankments too risky. At the time, highways
on piled embankments were performing satisfactory at six locations in the
Netherlands.
In reality, the additional costs for acceleration of construction by one
year were 33 million Euros. The difference with the case study is largely
due to the costs of changing an existing contract. But how should the
principal have stimulated short construction times from the onset of the
project?
3.3 Stimulating

short construction times

Faster construction of the road embankment does not necessarily lead to

faster completion of the entire project. The availability of grounds,
relocating underground infrastructure, legal procedures and coordination
with other construction works may seriously jeopardize the theoretically
feasible gain. The present Design & Construct contracts do not give the
contractor much room to operate, since the principal has arranged most of
these matters before contracting. Accelerated completion of projects will
require either more focus on acceleration for the principal, or more freedom

for the contractor in dealing with other stakeholders. The last is a shared
concern of contractor and principal, and it is only logical that also revenues
and the losses are shared.
Various projects in the Netherlands show what can be reached with the
changing attitude of the authorities. In the case of N210, the strict
requirements for availability and integrity of the existing road, and the
responsibility for the maintenance for the first 20 years, forced contractors
to offer innovative solutions. Lightweight EPS foam allowed the nearby 2
km long N475 to be reconstructed within a month, a bonus/penalty system
stimulating fast construction. The lightweight solution was hardly more
expensive than the traditional construction. A piled embankment turned out
to be more expensive because the logistics were less suitable for that
location. In both cases, the principal gave priority to the interests of the road
user. And in both cases, the additional costs of innovative construction
methods turned out to be limited.
4

MAKING A DESIGN FOR A EMBANKMENT

At the time that the Dutch Minister of Transport regarded piled
embankments too risky, several design methods for piled embankments
existed. These models tended to give completely different designs, up to a
factor 10 difference in design strength of the geosynthetic reinforcement.
For the Dutch it was not clear yet what method should be followed.
Since then, the Dutch Task Group Design Guideline for Piled
Embankments, has introduced the Dutch Design Guideline (Van Eekelen et
al., 2010a). Why should this Guideline ensure the Minister that it gives
reliable piled embankments?
The Task group evaluated the existing methods mathematically (Van
Eekelen and Bezxuijen, 2008a) and predictions were compared to finite
element calculations (Van Eekelen and Jansen, 2008b and appendix of
CUR, 2010) and several field tests. For this purpose, monitoring programs
were carried out in the Houten railway (Van Duijnen en Van Eekelen, 2010)
and in a pilot piled embankment the Kyoto Road, (Van Eekelen et al,
2010b)) and the results of the monitoring carried out by the contractor of the
N210 were also involved (Haring et al., 2008).

The agreement between finite element calculations and the German

EBGEO was very good, the agreement between EBGEO and the field
monitoring results was better than with one of the other design methods.
Therefore, it was concluded that the arching model given in the EBGEO,
was the best available model.
Thus, major parts of the EBGEO had been adopted in the Dutch
Guideline. However, constraints are adapted for Dutch circumstances as
described in Van Eekelen et al. (2010a). One of them is the reduction of the
minimum embankment height, which makes the guideline more suitable for
the flat Dutch country. In addition, the guideline has been extended with
several chapters, such as the traffic load that has to be taken into account
and two approaches for the pile design.
5

CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS

While making a decision for a road construction method in the Netherlands,
the authorities increasingly often consider more aspects than construction
costs only. This leads to application of innovative techniques more
frequently. For example, when construction time and reduction of traffic
hindrance are paramount, more often innovative constructions, like a piled
embankments, come out as the best option. In specific cases a piled
embankment is anyway one of the best feasible solutions, for instance if a
nearby sensitive construction has to be protected, or the available
construction time is limited.
A Dutch guideline has been introduced in the beginning of 2010,
which makes it more feasible to apply a piled embankment in the
Netherlands. Experiences with the guideline are now being acquired in
several piled embankments projects. Meanwhile, measurements continue in
the piled embankments of the N210, Houten and (only since a few months)
Woerden and laboratory experiments are being carried out in the laboratory
of Deltares. In the coming period, these measurements in field and
laboratory will be further evaluated and possibly, the Dutch Guideline can
be further improved in a few years.

REFERENCES
CUR, 2010 Design Guideline for Piled Embankments, CUR report

Duijnen, Piet, van, Eekelen, Suzanne, J.M. van, 2010, Monitoring of a

Railway Piled Embankment, paper nr 186 in the proc. of 9ICG,
Eekelen, S.J.M. van, Bezuijen, A. 2008a, Design of piled embankments,
considering the basic starting points of the British Design Guideline,
paper number 315 in the proceedings of EuroGeo4, September
2008, Edinburgh UK
Eekelen, Suzanne van, Jansen, Hein, 2008b, verslag van een case studie, op
weg naar een Nederlandse ontwerprichtlijn voor paalmatrassen,
Geotechniek July 2008, pp. 66-71
Eekelen, S.J.M., van, Jansen, H.L., Duijnen, P.G., van, De Kant, M, Dalen,
J.H., van, Brugman, M.H.A., Stoel, A.E.C., van der., Peters,
M.G.J.M (2010a). The Dutch Design Guideline for Piled
Embankments, paper nr 120 in the proc. of 9ICG, Brazil, 2010.
Eekelen, Suzanne van, Bezuijen, Adam and Alexiew, Dimiter (2010b), The
Kyoto Road, monitoring a piled embankment, comparing 3 1/2 years
of measurements with design calculations, paper nr 461 in the proc.
of 9ICG, Brazil, 2010
EBGEO: Bewehrte Erdkrper auf punkt- und linienformigen Traggliedern,
Empfehlung fr den Entwurf und die Berechnung von Erdkrper
mit Bewehrungen als Geokunststoffen, Ausgabe 02/2009, Kapitel
6.9. Deutsche Gesellschaft fr Geotechnik e.V. Arbeitskreis 5.2
Eurocode NEN-EN 1990 Grondslagen van het constructief ontwerp
Haring, W., Profittlich, M. & Hangen, H., 2008, Reconstruction of the
national road N210 Bergambacht to Krimpen a.d. IJssel, nl: design
approach, construction experiences and measurement results, 4th
European Geosynthetics Conf., September 2008, Edinburgh, UK.
Heemstra, Jan, 2008, Wat wij nu nog van Keverling Buisman kunnen leren:
De betekenis van klassieke matrassen in de wegenbouw voor de
paalmatras van vandaag. GeoKunst juli 2008, nr. 2, pp 54-57.
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motorways on soft soil on the basis of whole life costs. Proc. of the
16th Int. Conf. on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering.
Osaka, Japan, Vol. 4:2867-2870. Rotterdam: Millpress.