• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.251-259
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• 2014

The transition zone between an earthwork and a bridge effect to the vehicle's running stability because support stiffness of the roadbed is suddenly changed. The design criteria for the transition structure on ballast track were not particular in the past. However with the introduction of concrete track is introduced, it requires there is a higher performance level required because of maintenance and running stability. In this present paper, a transition structure reinforced with geosynthetics is suggested to improve the performance of existing bridge-earthwork transition structures. The suggested transition structure, in which there is reinforcing of the approach block using high-tension geosynthetics, has a structure similar to that of earth reinforced abutments. The utilized backfill materials are cement treated soil and gravel. These materials are used to reduce water intrusion into the approach block and to increase the recycling of surplus earth materials. An experiment was performed under the same conditions in order to allow a comparison of this new structure with the existing transition structure. Evaluation items are elastic displacement, cumulative settlement, and earth pressure. As for the results of the real-scale accelerated testing, the suggested transition structure has excellent performance for the reduction of earth pressure and settlement. Above all, it has high resistance the variation of the water content.