Stiffness of Ballastless Railway Embankments Determined by Repetitive Static Plate Load Tests

Wersäll, C., Baker, S., and Zackrisson, P. (2022). Stiffness of Ballastless Railway Embankments Determined by Repetitive Static Plate Load Tests. Stiffness of Ballastless Railway Embankments Determined by Repetitive Static Plate Load Tests (link.springer.com)

In the repetitive static plate load test, a plate is loaded in two cycles where the second loading cycle provides a modulus denoted Ev2. When calculating the stiffness of a railway embankment, Young’s modulus is often assumed to be equal to Ev2 throughout the embankment. This approach, however, provides inaccurate results, mainly due to soil nonlinearity and the influence of confinement stress. Based on the results of finite element analyses, a semi-empirical approach is proposed, which considers confinement stress through a hyperbolic stress–strain relationship.