Design of Reinforced Earth Railway Embankment for Rapid Loading System at Coal Handling Plant

Reinforced earth embankments have seen massive developments in the past few decades owing to their necessity and ability in supporting heavy static or dynamic loads. This study focusses on the design recommendations for a 24 m high reinforced earth embankment supporting 3 coal carrying freight rail tracks as well as 2 rapid loading system (RLS) used for hauling and transporting coal at a coal handling plant in Talchar, India. The study involved laboratory evaluation of the strength of various materials and its numerical application in designing of the embankment using finite element software MIDAS GTS NX. It was proposed to stabilize the embankment using a unique system of geocell, geogrid and geotextiles which performs the function of both reinforcement and separation while the side slopes were stabilised using anchors and geonets which improved the performance of embankment by 175%. The authors to the best of their experience and knowledge have given design protocols and recommendations for the design of a stable geometrical configuration of embankment.