High-speed rail earthworks design developments and innovative trials – building Britain’s technical legacy
High-speed rail earthworks design developments and innovative trials – building Britain’s technical legacy
Selection of appropriate engineering mitigations for Britain’s new high speed rail line HS2 earthworks to ensure compliance with track slab performance criteria reflective of the railway’s high operating speed represents a major technical challenge which is exacerbated by the challenging ground conditions encountered in the central section (Contract C23) of Phase One. High plasticity over-consolidated clays and extremely weak and weathered mudstones are prone to large magnitude and long duration movements due to loading or unloading. To overcome the technical challenges associated with uncertainty in predicting long-term ground behaviour and ensuring subgrade performance with limited previous case studies on ground formations that had not been extensively studied, the C23 team developed and implemented collaboratively with the Client a number of large-scale innovative Earthworks trials to increase confidence in heave and settlement predictions, pursue significant design efficiencies, validate the geotechnical performance of engineering fill materials and maximise the material re-use of the site won soils. This paper provides an overview of some of these large-scale earthwork trials and the design and construction lessons learnt describing how the C23 team set new standards of practice for the industry while building a strong technical legacy which will be passed on to future infrastructure projects in the UK and abroad.
Georgios Katsigiannis
18th European Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ECSMGE2024)
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