Centrifuge Modelling and Analysis of Ground Reaction of High-speed Railway Embankments over Medium Compressibility Ground

The objective of this study is to verify the feasibility of using centrifugal model tests to characterize the ground reaction response of a high-speed railway embankment to predict its ground settlement. To do so, a series of Centrifugal Model Tests (CMTs) of the embankment were performed to investigate the variation of ground reaction and corresponding derived modulus at different embankment ratios. The ground reaction determined from the CMTs was compared with those obtained from corresponding full-scale field tests of instrumented embankment. The results show that the ground reaction at the embankment centreline gradually approaches the embankment weight (γH) with increasing embankment ratio. Considering the embankment filling process with different embankment ratios, it seems inappropriate to employ the value of γH as the ground reaction without any correction in settlement prediction. Finally, the predictive capability of the proposed approach for embankment settlement estimation was assessed against the corresponding field measurements and those determined based on the calculation methods suggested in the current design standard in China. The results show that the proposed simple approach satisfactorily estimates the ground settlement of HSR embankments and its deviation of predicted settlements is below 11.9% compared with the data obtained from the field full-scale tests. However, the deviation of the result calculated by the current recommend design standard is 17.7%-148.3%.