Behavior of unsaturated pelitic soil in a railway context

Abstract

As part of the rehabilitation work on the Gabonese railway line, the Trans-Gabon Railway, it was necessary to analyse the behaviour of the materials constituting the subgrade soil. These soils are pelitic soils whose behaviour under unsaturated conditions and cyclic loading has not been studied before and which present differential settlements and lack of bearing capacity. In this article, we focus on the characterization of the subgrade soil. The objective of this work is first to determine the in-situ characteristics of the pelitic soil and be able to link these characteristics with the behaviour studied in laboratory. For that purpose, we propose an in-situ investigation based on the use of light dynamic penetrometric tests in order to assess the variability of the subgrade layer and a drying-wetting test to assess the influence of hydric stress on the drainage path of the studied soil. We present the results of in-situ tests performed on a study area. We also present the results of the tests to determine the soil water characteristic curves (SWCC) and the curves describing the volumetric behaviour of this soil when exposed to drying.