The paper deals with an innovative foundation system for embankments on soft soils. It con-sists of two sheet pile walls, which are installed parallel to each other, to confine the soft foundation soil. Those sheet pile walls are firmly connected on the ground level by a geotextile with high tensile stiffness. The embankment will be constructed on top of the geotextile, which will act as a tension membrane. The complex interactive load bearing behavior has been analyzed by means of centrifuge model tests and nu-merical analyses. Based on those investigations a semi analytical design approach has been developed. The paper describes the system set-up, the centrifuge model tests, the numerical analyses, the load bearing be-havior, the design approach and possible application areas.
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