Effect of water content on long-term cyclic behaviour of railway platform materials
Date
2015-10-23Document type
conferenceObjectMateria/s Unesco
2205.02 Mecánica de Medios ContinuosAbstract
The ‘Interlayer’ soil in the French conventional railways platforms, a coarse grain soil with low
permeability, was studied at different hydric conditions: w = 4% (OPM) and w = 10% (Saturated) using a
large-scale triaxial (ø= 300 mm) cell. For each test, 5 different cyclic loading levels has been considered
(from ∆q = 10 kPa to ∆q = 30 kPa per cycle). The loading levels simulate the real loading at the interlayer
depth in a real railway platform. The results clearly show the influence of the non-saturation on the evolution
of elastic modulus and damping ratio. When the loading level is increased, the elastic modulus decreases and
the damping ratio increases. The accumulation of plastic strains after 90000 cycles was also analyzed for both
hydric conditions, showing that the initial moisture content and the elastic modulus greatly affect the
accumulative strains.