The observed behaviour of a reinforced and an unreinforced embankment constructed on a soft compressible organic clayey silt deposit is compared in this paper. A relatively high strength polyester woven geotextile was used as the reinforcement which was instrumented with three types of strain gauges. The field investigation indicates that considerable caution is required for the design of embankments on soft organic clayey silt deposits if such design is based on vane strength and on the use of simple limit equilibrium design procedures. The observed failure thickness of the unreinforced embap.kment was below the predicted range and that of the reinforced embankment was well within the predicted range. This suggests that the relative benefits of reinforcement may be even greater for the type of soil investigated in this test embankment (soft compressible organic clayey silt) than they are for conventional perfectly plastic or work hardening soils.
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