Geotechnical Centrifuge and Full-Scale Laboratory Testing for Performance Evaluation of Conventional and High-Speed Railway Track Structures

TY - GEN

T1 - Geotechnical Centrifuge and Full-Scale Laboratory Testing for Performance Evaluation of Conventional and High-Speed Railway Track Structures

AU - Woodward, Peter K.

AU - Brennan, Andrew

AU - Laghrouche, Omar

AU - Esen, Ahmet

AU - Connolly, David

AU - Mariot, Tina

N1 - Funding Information: The authors are grateful to the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) for funding this work under Grant Number EP/N009215/1. Max-B?gl is also acknowledged for their support with regard to the experimental testing stages. Publisher Copyright: © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

PY - 2021

Y1 - 2021

N2 - The development of high-speed railways is progressing at a very rapid pace worldwide. For example, in the UK, the construction of Phase 1 (225 km) of the HS2 line has now begun, and it will have a maximum operational speed of 360 km/h. In this paper, the performance of a geosynthetic-reinforced soil retaining wall (GRS-RW) is presented for both ballasted track and concrete slab track using full-scale laboratory testing and geotechnical centrifuge modelling. In the full-scale testing, the geo-pavement and railways accelerated fatigue testing (GRAFT II) facility at Heriot-Watt University is used. It operates using six independent hydraulic actuators over three full-size sleepers to simulate the passage of a moving train. The tested GRS-RW structures consist of well-compacted subgrade and a frost protection layer designed to HS2 standards. Results are recorded in terms of deflections, accelerations, total settlement and transient stresses at various locations of the structure model. Whilst the full-scale GRAFT II testing elucidates behaviour of the track and wall, in order to study how the foundation subsoil may interact with the structure, a series of small-scale experiments were carried out in the geotechnical centrifuge by the University of Dundee. By creating small-scale physical models of the GRS-RW and foundation and by increasing gravity, the centrifuge was used to simulate the large induced stresses. Short- and long-term deformations of the wall and foundation were also monitored. Comparisons between the full-scale and centrifuge modelling are presented.

AB - The development of high-speed railways is progressing at a very rapid pace worldwide. For example, in the UK, the construction of Phase 1 (225 km) of the HS2 line has now begun, and it will have a maximum operational speed of 360 km/h. In this paper, the performance of a geosynthetic-reinforced soil retaining wall (GRS-RW) is presented for both ballasted track and concrete slab track using full-scale laboratory testing and geotechnical centrifuge modelling. In the full-scale testing, the geo-pavement and railways accelerated fatigue testing (GRAFT II) facility at Heriot-Watt University is used. It operates using six independent hydraulic actuators over three full-size sleepers to simulate the passage of a moving train. The tested GRS-RW structures consist of well-compacted subgrade and a frost protection layer designed to HS2 standards. Results are recorded in terms of deflections, accelerations, total settlement and transient stresses at various locations of the structure model. Whilst the full-scale GRAFT II testing elucidates behaviour of the track and wall, in order to study how the foundation subsoil may interact with the structure, a series of small-scale experiments were carried out in the geotechnical centrifuge by the University of Dundee. By creating small-scale physical models of the GRS-RW and foundation and by increasing gravity, the centrifuge was used to simulate the large induced stresses. Short- and long-term deformations of the wall and foundation were also monitored. Comparisons between the full-scale and centrifuge modelling are presented.

KW - Experimental

KW - Geosynthetic

KW - Railways

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85113215181

U2 - 10.1007/978-3-030-77234-5_78

DO - 10.1007/978-3-030-77234-5_78

M3 - Conference contribution

AN - SCOPUS:85113215181

SN - 9783030772338 (hbk)

SN - 9783030772369 (pbk)

VL - 2

T3 - Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering

SP - 957

EP - 968

BT - Advances in Transportation Geotechnics IV - Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Transportation Geotechnics

A2 - Tutumluer, Erol

A2 - Nazarian, Soheil

A2 - Al-Qadi, Imad

A2 - Qamhia, Issam I. A.

PB - Springer Nature Switzerland AG

CY - Switzerland

T2 - 4th International Conference on Transportation Geotechnics, ICTG 2021

Y2 - 23 May 2021 through 26 May 2021

ER -