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Abstract: It is crucial for the design and operation of a high-speed railway to estimate and control the accumulative settlement of the
subgrade induced by cyclic train loading. In this study, an analytical model, considering the effect of the initial stress state, is proposed
to predict the accumulative settlement of high-speed railway subgrade. Dynamic load triaxial tests are conducted to determine the parameters
involved in the computational model. Full-scale model experiments are carried out to verify the effectiveness of the proposed computational
model in predicting the accumulative settlement of high-speed railway subgrade. A probabilistic analytical model is developed for a reli-
ability-based settlement risk assessment of the subgrade by considering the uncertainties and randomness of the relevant parameters. The
coefficient of variation (COV) of the dynamic stress on the subgrade surface caused by train loading is derived from field data measured on the
Wuhan-Guangzhou High-Speed Railway, China. A Monte Carlo simulation is employed to analyze the statistical properties of the accu-
mulative settlement. The effects of the dominant parameters on the reliability index, including the mean value and the COV of the stochastic
parameters as well as water level variation, are calculated through a sensitivity analysis. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)CF.1943-5509.0000789.
© 2015 American Society of Civil Engineers.
Author keywords: High-speed railway subgrade; Accumulative settlement; Full-scale model test; Probabilistic model; Reliability analysis.
Introduction the total settlement of the Shanghai Metro Line 1 was 2–6 mm
during the 2 years before its opening to traffic, but reached
In recent years, many high-speed railways have been constructed 140 mm after 4 years of operation (Chen et al. 2002).
and operated in China for wide-range passenger transportation. Ac- It is crucial for high-speed railway design and operation to
cording to several national and international codes and standards estimate the accumulative settlement under cyclic train loading
(Ministry of Railways of the People’s Republic of China 2007; (Zhou et al. 2012). A series of empirical models have been devel-
German Railway Standard 2008), postsettlement of a high-speed oped to predict the permanent strain on the roadbed filling and the
railway should be strictly maintained within a safe margin. ground soil by dynamic load triaxial tests. Monismith et al. (1975)
Generally, postsettlement of a high-speed railway comprises the proposed a practical exponential model for fine-grained soil de-
compressed settlement caused by its self-weight and the accumu- pending on dynamic load triaxial tests, but the parameters in the
lative settlement induced by train loading. Although the mecha- model were too dispersed. Li and Selig (1996) then put static
nisms of these two settlement components are different, field strength parameters into this model and presented the ranges of
measurements indicate that the dynamic loading from train traffic those parameters for different types of soils. Chai and Miura
is the more influential on postsettlement (Tohno and Iwata 1989). A (2002) introduced initial static deviator stress into the previously
few incidents on the accumulative settlement of such railways have mentioned model. For unbound granular materials, Gidel et al.
been reported in the literature. For example, the first high-speed (2001) developed a model accounting for the stress state, the dy-
railway in Japan, the Hokkaido Shinkansen, was designed without namic stress, and the soil properties. Later, the influence of hori-
considering the effect of cyclic train loading, resulting in postset- zontal restraints was taken into account in the settlement prediction
tlement increasing so much in operation that the train speed was model (Abdelkrim et al. 2003, 2006; Chen et al. 2014a).
limited to 110–180 km=h from the expected design speed of Over several decades, many investigations have been conducted
210 km=h (Yang et al. 1998). In the case of one railway in Japan, on settlement evaluation taking into account uncertainties in mate-
the accumulative settlement caused by train loading reached 1 m rials, geometries, and loads. Alonso and Krisek (1973) described
after 5 years of operation (Andersen et al. 1978). In addition, the expression of the mean value and the standard deviation of
the ground settlement by incorporating significant uncertainties
1
Professor, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Zhejiang Univ., Hangzhou into the settlement estimation. By considering the uncertainties
310058, China. of soil compressibility and loads, Krizek et al. (1977) formulated
2
M.Sc. Candidate, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Zhejiang Univ., a probabilistic model for evaluating the total settlement and the rate
Hangzhou 310058, China. of settlement of a compressible clay layer. They found that the total
3
Associate Professor, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Zhejiang Univ., settlement and its rate were well predicted by a log-normal distri-
Hangzhou 310058, China (corresponding author). E-mail: cexwye@zju bution. Paice et al. (1996) concluded that the settlement for an elas-
.edu.cn tic heterogeneous soil was approximately 12% higher than the
4
Professor, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Zhejiang Univ., Hangzhou
determined value if the coefficient of variation (COV) of Young’s
310058, China.
Note. This manuscript was submitted on October 6, 2014; approved on modulus is 42%. Fenton and Griffiths (2002) carried out the
April 17, 2015; published online on June 22, 2015. Discussion period open numerical study of a single footing founded on a soil layer over-
until November 22, 2015; separate discussions must be submitted for in- lying bedrock, and found that the settlement and the differential
dividual papers. This paper is part of the Journal of Performance of Con- settlement could be predicted by a log-normal distribution when
structed Facilities, © ASCE, ISSN 0887-3828/04015047(10)/$25.00. the distribution of the elastic modulus was log-normal.
(c)
Fig. 3. Photos of full-scale model (images by P. Jiang): (a) sensor deployment; (b) installation of track structure; (c) assembly of loading system
Table 1. Physical Parameters of Subgrade and Ballastless Track Structure Table 2. Soil Properties of Subgrade
Elastic Soil layer Thickness K 30 (MPa=m) Ev2 (MPa) K
modulus Poisson’s Density Thickness
Graded gravel 0.4 207–285 101–140 0.97
Layer type (MPa) ratio (kg=m−3 ) (m)
Coarse sand 2.3 140–155 47–52 0.94
Track slab 3.5 × 104 0.167 3.0 × 103 0.2
CA mortar 92 0.4 2.0 × 103 0.05
Concrete base 2.4 × 104 0.2 2.7 × 103 0.3
Surface layer of subgrade 60 0.25 2.4 × 103 0.4 Comparative Analysis between Model Test and
Bottom layer of subgrade 35 0.15 1.8 × 103 2.3 Computational Model
The parameters s and m are denoted as the intercept and the slope
of the strength envelope in the p-q plane, representing the influence
60
of the function, g, on the accumulative settlement. The stress path
changes with the initial stress state of the subgrade. That is to say,
40 the stress state path moves on the basis of the line q ¼ qm =pm .
pðqm =pm ¼ 0.97Þ, and thus the parameter m should be modified
as (Bian et al. 2010)
20
0.0016
Table 3. Relationship between Loading Frequency, Train Speed, and
Phase Difference 60 kPa 90 kPa 120 kPa
0.0014 180 kPa 210 kPa
Train speed Loading frequency Phase difference between
(km=h) of one axle (Hz) adjacent actuators (°) 0.0012
18 0.8 9
Permanent strain
108 4.8 9 0.0010
144 6.4 9
180 8.0 9 0.0008
270 12.1 9
360 16.1 9 0.0006
0.0004
0.0002
respectively. It is seen from Fig. 6 that the permanent strain of the
coarse sand increases rapidly with the number of the loading 0.0000
0
cycle. When the number of loading cycles reaches 10,000, the 0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 30000
permanent strain remains steady. In order to determine the material (a) Loading number
parameters εp0 and n, the values obtained at the end of the loading
stage after 30,000 cycles are assumed to be the ultimate permanent
strain. The material parameters εp0 and n are then obtained by 0.0020 60 kPa 90 kPa 120 kPa
fitting the ultimate permanent strain to Eq. (6), as illustrated 180 kPa 210 kPa
in Fig. 7.
0.0016
Permanent strain
0.0000
0
Vibration Velocity Generated by Dynamic Loading 0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 30000
Fig. 9 illustrates the vibration velocities of the track slab and the (b) Loading number
surface layer of the subgrade recorded by the velocity transducers.
Fig. 10 shows the relationship between the train speed and the vi- Fig. 6. Development of permanent strain: (a) under waterless condi-
bration velocity of the track slab and the surface layer of the sub- tions; (b) under saturated conditions
grade. From Figs. 9 and 10 it can be seen that when the train
velocity increases, the amplitude of the vibration velocities of
Results Obtained for Accumulative Settlement
the track slab and the surface layer of the subgrade also increase.
In addition, the vibration velocity of the track slab is greater than After the dynamic stress of the subgrade and the material param-
that of the surface layer of the subgrade. eters have been determined, the ultimate accumulative settlement of
0.0012 Experimental 10
216 km/h
Fitting curve
0.0009
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-5
0.0008
-10
0.0007
40 80 120 160 200 240 -15
(a) Confining pressure (kPa) 104 108 112 116 120 124
(a) Time (s)
0.0017
8
4
ε p0=0.0024; n =0.2 216 km/h
0.0015 2
108 km/h
0
0.0014
-2
0.0013 -4
40 80 120 160 200 240
(b) Confining pressure (kPa) -6
104 108 112 116 120 124
Fig. 7. Determination of parameters and n: (a) under waterless con- εp0 (b) Time (s)
ditions; (b) under saturated conditions
Fig. 9. Vibration velocities recorded at different train speeds: (a) track
slab; (b) surface layer of subgrade
15
Track slab
Dynamic stress (kPa)
Surface layer of subgrade
0 5 10 15 20 25
0
German Railway standard
Vibration velocity (mm/s)
Depth from subgrade surface (m)
10
-1
-2 Model test
5
v =108 km/h
v =216 km/h
-3 v =360 km/h
Fig. 8. Dynamic stress distribution along depth Fig. 10. Relationship between train speed and vibration velocity
0.7
0.5
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(1)
0.6 δ
Fig. 11. Obtained accumulative settlement of subgrade from model test 0.2
0.1
the high-speed railway subgrade under waterless conditions can be
estimated by Eq. (7), and the calculated result is 1.8 mm. Fig. 11 0
0.0
0 1 2 3 4 5
shows the obtained accumulative settlement result from the model
test; the accumulative settlement of the subgrade approaches Accumulative settlement (mm)
1.4 mm and tends to be steady after 200,000 cycles, and the ulti-
Fig. 12. Probability density function of accumulative settlement
mate accumulative settlement of the subgrade reaches 1.8 mm.
Therefore, it is demonstrated that the computational model pro-
posed in this paper exhibits good performance in predicting the
accumulative settlement of high-speed railway subgrade under pf ¼ PðZ ≤ 0Þ
train loading. Xn
p Li n pref þ pm
¼p 5− ε0 ≤0
i¼1
100 s þ mðpref þ pm Þ − ðqref þ qm Þ
Reliability Assessment and Sensitivity Analysis of ð11Þ
Accumulative Settlement
three scenarios.
0.2
8 8
(1) (1)
7 (2) 7 (2)
(3) (3)
6 6
Reliability index
Reliability index
5 5
4 4
3 3
2 2
1 1
(a) μ (b) μ
8 8
(1) (1)
7 (2)
7 (2)
(3) (3)
6 6
Reliability index
Reliability index
5 5
4 4
3 3
2 2
1 1
Fig. 14. Reliability index versus mean values of parameters: (a) p0 ; (b) εp0 ; (c) n; (d) φ
significant effect on the reliability index, and the mean values of the
ness and the strength of the roadbed filling have a significant effect
parameters p0 and φ have more effect on the reliability index than
on the accumulative settlement of the high-speed railway subgrade.
that of the parameter n.
The parameter p0 represents the dynamic stress on the sub-
grade surface, the parameter εp0 is directly related to the com- Effect of Water Level Variation on Reliability Index
pactness of the coarse sand, and the parameter φ reflects the Under the wetting-drying cycle caused by underwater level varia-
strength of the coarse sand. The statistical properties of the tion, the water content and the saturation level of the subgrade will
dynamic stress on the subgrade surface as well as the compact- be changed, and it will increase the accumulative settlement of the
ness and the strength of the roadbed filling have a significant subgrade induced by the train loading (Chen et al. 2014b). In this
effect on the accumulative settlement of the high-speed railway study, the effect of the water level on the reliability index is inves-
subgrade, and therefore the stochastic features of these parame- tigated under the previously mentioned three scenarios. It is seen
ters should be rationally controlled in practical engineering from Fig. 16 that a rise in the water level significantly decreases the
applications. reliability index.
6.5 6.5
(1) (1)
6.0 6.0
(2) (2)
5.0 5.0
Reliability index
Reliability index
4.5 4.5
4.0 4.0
3.5 3.5
3.0 3.0
2.5 2.5
2.0 2.0
0.16 0.20 0.24 0.28 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25 0.30
(a) (b)
6.5 6.5
(1) (1)
6.0 6.0
(2) (2)
5.0 5.0
Reliability index
Reliability index
4.5 4.5
4.0 4.0
3.5 3.5
3.0 3.0
2.5 2.5
2.0 2.0
0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25 0.30 0.09 0.12 0.15 0.18 0.21
(c) (d)
Fig. 15. Reliability index versus COVs of parameters: (a) p0 ; (b) εp0 ; (c) n; (d) φ
(ASCE)1090-0241(2002)128:11(907), 907–916.
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