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Numerical analysis on seismic behavior of railway earth embankment: A case study

  • Geological, Civil, Energy and Traffic Engineering
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Abstract

A numerical case study on the seismic behavior of embankment was carried out based on a prototype of earth embankment in Yun−Gui Railway (from Kunming City to Nanning City) in southwest of China. A full-scale model of earth embankment was established by means of numerical simulation with FLAC3D code. The numerical results were verified by shaking table test. The seismic behaviors of earth embankment were studied, including the horizontal acceleration response, the vertical acceleration response, the dynamic displacement response, and the block state of earth embankment. Results show that the acceleration magnification near the embankment slope is larger than that in internal earth embankment body. With the increase of input peak acceleration, the horizontal acceleration magnification presents a decreasing trend. The horizontal acceleration response at the top of embankment is more sensitive to the intensity of ground motion than that at the bottom of embankment. The embankment presents an obvious nonlinear-plastic characteristic when the input horizontal peak acceleration is larger than 0.3 g. The maximum residual deformation occurs in the middle of embankment slope surface instead of at the top of embankment. The upper part of embankment experiences tension failure without shear failure, and area at the bottom of embankment around the symmetry-axis of embankment mainly presents shear failure under the earthquake loading. The tension failure and shear failure repeatedly occur along the slope surface of earth embankment.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Civil Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, 410075, China

    Yu-liang Lin  (林宇亮), Feng Shi  (石峰), Xiao Yang  (杨啸) & Guo-lin Yang  (杨果林)

  2. Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Melbourne, 3800, Australia

    Xiao Yang  (杨啸)

  3. School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Hunan University of Science and Engineering, Yongzhou, 425199, China

    Li-min Li  (李丽民)

Authors
  1. Yu-liang Lin  (林宇亮)
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  2. Feng Shi  (石峰)
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  3. Xiao Yang  (杨啸)
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  4. Guo-lin Yang  (杨果林)
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  5. Li-min Li  (李丽民)
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yu-liang Lin  (林宇亮).

Additional information

Foundation item: Project(51308551) supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China; Project(2012M511760) supported by the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation; Project(13JJ4017) supported by the Hunan Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China

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Lin, Yl., Shi, F., Yang, X. et al. Numerical analysis on seismic behavior of railway earth embankment: A case study. J. Cent. South Univ. 23, 906–918 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11771-016-3138-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11771-016-3138-5

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