• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.129-137
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• 2008

An active application of concrete track is being expected far the future constructions of Korean railroad. In comparison with the existing ballasted tract, a concrete track is very susceptible for the settlement, since its rehabilitation requires much time and cost. When a concrete track is constructed on fine-grained subgrade soil, excessive cumulative plastic settlements due to repetitive train road may occur. In this case, the settlement of the concrete track may be effectively reduced by installing a small number of small-diameter piles beneath the track. This paper presents the effect of pile installation on the reduction of cumulative plastic settlement of concrete track. A method combining experiential equation and numerical method is proposed. Using an existing experiential equation and the estimated earth pressure distribution, the cumulative plastic strain was calculated. From the results, it is verified that the effects of the pile installation is significant to effectively reduce the cumulative plastic settlement of concrete track. The reduction effects of the cumulative plastic settlement according to the pile number and pile arrangement are presented.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2011.10a
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• pp.406-411
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• 2011

An active application of tram is being expected in Korea in the near future. For the tram operation in urban area, the embedded rail tracks where rails are completely embedded with pavements is required. When the embedded rail track is constructed on fine-grained subgrade soil, excessive cumulative plastic settlements due to repetitive tram road may occur. In this study, repetitive load tests were carried out to evaluate the accumulative plastic settlements of subgrade soils underneath embedded rail tracks. Two real-scale track specimens of 5 m lengths were constructed considering the maximum cant of a curved line. Repetitive tram loads of three million times were applied to the tracks in 5 Hz frequency. The accumulating patterns of plastic settlements were analyzed. Tram load distributing effects of the concrete slabs were also evaluated using the measured data of earth pressures cells that were installed underneath track. Also the measured settlements were compared with the estimated settlements calculated from an existing experimental equations, and its validity is discussed.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.191-208
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• 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 $FLAC^{3D}$.