A study on the behaviour of a railway embankment: in situ monitoring and numerical analysis

The paper investigates the soil-structure interaction between a clay embankment of the new high speed railway network Milan-Naples (Italy) and its clay foundation reinforced with different length driven concrete piles and geotextile. The embankment has been placed next to the old railway line. A monitoring system has been installed in a section of the embankment from the beginning of the construction of the new line. Numerical simulations describing both the old and new embankments (for a given section) have been carried out, by using Abaqus computer code, in order to back analyse the monitoring data. The analysis has been carried out in effective stress conditions, referring to long term conditions, to analyse the engineering problem to reduce the final embankment settlement. The results of the numerical simulations put into evidence that the model can reproduce the experimental data regarding the settlements below the new embankment and the interaction between the new embankment supported by piles and the old railway line embankment.