GEOCELL FOR RAILWAY APPLICATIONS

GEOCELL FOR RAILWAY APPLICATIONS

The world's railway network spans over 800,000 miles, and much of the world's economy relies on the movement of goods that these rail lines carry. When designing these systems, one needs to consider the traffic effect on the rail system and the environment they will be constructed in to ensure these systems can run uninterrupted. The ballast and sub-ballast layer must be designed so the stresses from the loading and environment is reduced when transferred to the subgrade. Because of this, the required thickness of the track bed layer can be very large depending on these conditions. As high-quality building resources are becoming scarcer and more expensive, it is imperative that state-of-the-art technologies are used to maintain and build these systems not only for cost savings, but also to reduce the footprint left on the earth. 

Geocell provides an opportunity to meet these requirements by reinforcing the foundations to accomplish greater strength by minimizing the material needed and a llowing for local, marginal-quality material to be used instead of using additional resources to haul in material. Many of the issues poor subgrades cause such as ballast pockets, unsymmetrical subgrade strength and subgrade pumping can be addressed with Geo cell. HDPE Geocell will improve the properties of the existing subgrade, which will provide adequate and uniform support for the rail system. Gravel grid does this by providing a large increase in the bearing capacity of the infill material. Based on empirical research and bearing capacity calculations by Dr. Robert Koerner , it was found that geocell can increase the bearing capacity of soil by over 13 times. Not only does Retaining wall increase the bearing capacity of infill material, but it spreads the load laterally, known as a mattress effect. The mattress effect occurs when lateral earth pressures are mobilized and transferred across the threedimensional network of interconnected cells. In this regard, the properties of the i nfill material act in conjunction with the characteristics of the road geocell to facilitate the desired ground improvement effect, which is to reduce the stress on the subgrade. In recent testing, it was shown that Geo cel reduces the stress on the subgrade by over 50% compared to a section with equal height of compacted stone. In comparison, a similar test ran with geogrid found that a standard BX geogrid was only able to reduce the stress on the subgrade by approximately 20%. In other recent research as well as field case studies, it has been found that geocell can reduce the depth of constructing or granular fill material needed by 40 – 50%. This reduction is due to the geocell's ability to eliminate most of these problems. HDPE geocell extends the life of the track and minimizes maintenance, which overall reduces the amount of track downtime. If you have any needs or questions, please feel free to contact us, Mary +8618130028453, mary@zhongloo.com, Anhui Zhonglu (www.zlgeo.com).

Geocell grid will keep the track in place when there is shrinkage and swelling of a clay subgrade, as it provides tensile strength and shear strength to contour the soil movement. Because road geocell provides a bearing strength improvement to the infill material, less material is needed to achieve the needed strength to support the rail system. In addition, unlike geogrid, any drained material can be used. Geogrid can only be used with a well graded high-quality stone which usually has to be manufactured and hauled in, whereas local, onsite material is able to be used with Gravel geocell. If you have any needs or questions, please feel free to contact us, Mary +8618130028453, mary@zhongloo.com, Anhui Zhonglu (www.zlgeo.com).