• Geomechanics and Engineering
• /
• v.4 no.3
• /
• pp.191-208
• /
• 2012

Due to rapid industrialisation, large scale infrastructure development is taking place worldwide. This includes railways, high speed highways, elevated roads etc. To meet the demands of society and industry, many innovative techniques and materials are being developed. In developed nations like USA, Japan etc. for railways applications, new material like geocells, geogrids are being used successfully to enable fast movement of vehicles. The present research work was aimed to develop design methodologies for improvement of grounds subjected to cyclic loads caused by moving vehicles on roads, rail tracks etc. Deformation behavior of ballast under static and cyclic load tests was studied based on square footing test. The paper presents a study of the effect of geo-synthetic reinforcement on the (cumulative) plastic settlement, of point loaded square footing on a thick layer of granular base overlying different compressible bases. The research findings showed that inclusion of geo-synthetics significantly improves the performance of ballasted tracks and reduces the foundation area. If the area is kept same, higher speed trains can be allowed to pass through the same track with insertion of geosynthetics. Similarly, area of machine foundation may also be reduced where geosynthetics is provided in foundation. The model tests results have been validated by numerical modeling, using $FLAC^{3D}$.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
• /
• 2010.09c
• /
• pp.3-10
• /
• 2010

Case study was carried out on the interpretation of the mechanical behavior of a severely damaged reinforced earth wall comprising geotextile with the concrete panel facing. In this part I, the outline of the damaged reinforced earth wall is in detail described. The background and cause of the damage are discussed based on the results of site investigation. The engineering properties of the fill were examined by performing various in-situ and laboratory tests, including the surface wave survey (SWS), PS-logging, RI-logging, soaking test, the direct shear box (DSB) test, bender element (BE) test, etc. The background as well as the cause for the damage of the wall may be described such that i) a considerable amount of settlement took place over a 3m thick weak soil layer in the lower part of the reinforced earth due to seepage of rainfall water, ii) the weight of the upper fill was partially supported by the geo-textile hooked on the concrete panels (n.b., named conveniently "hammock state" in this paper), and iii) the concrete panels to form the hammock were severely damaged by the unexpectedly large downwards compression force triggered by the tension force of the geotextile. The numerical simulation for the hammock state of the wall, together with counter-measures to re- stabilize the wall is subsequently described in Part II.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
• /
• v.29 no.11
• /
• pp.17-27
• /
• 2013

This study is to prove the efficiency of geo-synthetics on the crushed stone layer by experiments. The strength of PET mat as reinforcing soft ground was verified through the loading experiments. Also, PP mat was used to protect the blockage of crushed stone layer by the filled soil, whose efficiency was examined according to loading and infiltration conditions. The crushed stones were penetrated into clay layer if the PET mat was removed, which was verified by loading experiments. In addition, the cohesioness of soil without PP mat made the blockage of stone layer easily, which reduced the infiltration capacity by about 98%.