To improve the understanding of the soil aching effect in the embankment fill, a series of model tests and finite element analysis were carried out. It is found that for low fill height relative to the net pile spacing, H/s－a≤1, the failure surface is vertical or slightly inclined which starts from the pile edge and goes through the whole fill height. For H/s－a≥1.5, the developed bulb shaped rupture surface is located near the pile head and can be approximated as a logarithmic spiral surface. By using the failure surface shape determined from the model test and FEM analyses, a three dimensional simplified method to evaluate the soil arching effect was proposed. The computed results were compared with FEM results and the experimental data collected from literatures, it is found that the present simplified method can predict reliable results.