Behavior of Railway Pavements Reinforced with Geocells.
Railway, Geocell, large scale laboratory tests, Construction and Demolition Waste (CDW).
The Brazilian transport matrix is unbalanced because of the predominance of road transport in comparison with other modalities. Railroad transport, when compared to road transport, has lower costs when used for heavier loads and over long distances. For this reason, there is a need to develop the railway network in the country. During the life cycle of a railroad, the largest component of expenditure comes from maintenance services. One of the possible ways to improve its operation and increase the period between maintenance is the use of geosynthetics. In this context, this thesis investigates the performance of geosynthetics applied as reinforcement elements in railway sidewalks. In the research, large-scale laboratory testing of geocell-reinforced railroad subjected to cyclic loading was performed. The track substructure consisted of sandy subgrade, capping of alternative material (construction and demolition waste - CDW) and ballast of new gravel. The geocells were positioned in the subgrade layer. In the analyses, the behavior of the system without reinforcement was evaluated in comparison with the reinforced systems, considering the influence of the geocell heights. The preliminary results point to an improvement in the reduction of settlements in the ballast layer and a decrease in stress increases within the subgrade layer.