Evaluation of Geocell-Reinforced Railway Track Using FEM and FLM-Based Software: A Parametric Analysis

This study presents numerical simulations of railway track with unreinforced and geocell-reinforced substructure. A software based on the Finite Element Method (FEM) and on the Finite Layer Method (FLM) was used to simulate a hypothetical reinforced railway track based on an unreinforced field test with an instrumented railway track previously studied. A parametric analysis with different railway granular layer thicknesses and subgrade resilient moduli was implemented for both reinforced and unreinforced situations. The analyses were focused on vertical stresses on the top of the subgrade and vertical displacements of the rails and sleepers. The objective was to evaluate the geocell reinforcement efficiency in improving railway track performance and to provide a more comprehensive overview of the benefits from the reinforcement insertion in the railway substructure according to its characteristics. The results indicated that the geocell-reinforced infrastructure demonstrated reductions of up to 13% in vertical stresses on the top of the subgrade and 12% and 19% in vertical displacements of the rails and sleepers, respectively. Geocell-reinforcement presented better performance in thinner granular layers and in less stiff subgrades.