Recently a number of soil structures, in particular embankments, were seriously damaged by natural disasters, mostly severe earthquakes, heavy rainfalls, floods and their combinations. As railway is a continuous linear system, it cannot function properly even if a soil structure collapses at a single loca-tion. For this reason, soil structures, including embankments, are required to exhibit similar stability as other types of railway structure (i.e., bridges, tunnels and viaducts) when subjected to severe natural disas-ters, although they are much more vulnerable to natural disasters. The paper reports a new cost-effective and fast method developed to reinforce existing embankment slopes against severe earthquakes and heavy rainfalls by nailing the embankment body and covering the slope surface with geocell layers that are firm-ly connected to the head of nails. The research, the design method and case histories are introduced.
Menu