Stresses and displacements in reinforced tracks

Railways form an important part of the transportation infrastructure of a country and play an important role in sustaining a healthy economy. Indian Railways has now geared up to overhaul and upgrade its infrastructure to meet future demand of increasing traffic. Special emphasis has been placed on spreading the railway network by laying new tracks and also on increasing transportation efficiency by running heavier, longer and faster trains. The use of geosynthetics in civil engineering has advanced rapidly in recent years and it is now an internationally accepted material for various applications. Geosynthetics provide an important option to improve the support structure of the track, and thereby reduce the track maintenance costs and operational costs. In railway construction, geosynthetics may be installed within or beneath the ballast or subballast layers. In the present study, three-dimensional finite-element analyses of geosynthetic-reinforced railway track sections were carried out using commercial software ABAQUS 6·11 and the results were compared with that of unreinforced section in terms of induced stresses and displacements in the track structure. The results show that the geosynthetic reinforcement can be effectively used to improve the performance of railway tracks on clayey subgrade.