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Settlement Prediction of High Speed Railway Embankments Considering the Accumulation of Wetting and Drying Cycles

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Abstract

The hydro-mechanical behaviour of a compacted silt clayey soil from an experimental railway embankment was investigated. Laboratorial tests were performed, in which compacted samples were subjected to some wetting and drying cycles to simulate the effect of atmospheric actions. Data from the tests allowed studying the effect, on volumetric behaviour, of cumulative deformations caused by the cycles. Also, experimental data allowed finding the constants of the constitutive model for unsaturated soils BBM. The volumetric behaviour of the experimental embankment was simulated using program Code Bright. Atmospheric actions were considered and seasonal deformations were calculated. The results can be useful to estimate maintenance needs of railway infrastructures.

Keywords

  • suction cycles
  • embankment
  • climate
  • settlements
  • performance

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Correspondence to Rafaela Cardoso .

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© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Cardoso, R., Fernandes, V., Ferreira, T.M., Teixeira, P.F. (2012). Settlement Prediction of High Speed Railway Embankments Considering the Accumulation of Wetting and Drying Cycles. In: Mancuso, C., Jommi, C., D’Onza, F. (eds) Unsaturated Soils: Research and Applications. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31343-1_37

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31343-1_37

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-31342-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-31343-1

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