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General Report TC202
Transportation Geotechnics
Rapport général du TC202
Géotechnique pour les infrastructures de transport
Indraratna B.
Centre for Geomechanics and Railway Engineering,
Program Leader, ARC Centre of Excellence for Geotechnical Science and Engineering
University of Wollongong, Wollongong City, NSW 2522, Australia
Correia A.
School of Engineering, Univ. of Minho, DEC Campus de Azurém, 4800-058 Guimarães, Portugal
ABSTRACT: Today’s needs of urban transportation including roads, railways, airports and harbours demand significant resources for
infrastructure development in view of rapid and efficient public and commercial (freight) services. In most cases, authorities have had
difficulties in meeting these service demands due to the rapidly growing public, industrial, mining and agricultural sectors in many
parts of the world. In order to maximise efficiency and to reduce the costs of maintenance, sound technical knowledge is required.
This general report presents major technical advancements around the globe encompassing 33 articles from 19 countries and it is
classified into 6 key categories, namely: compaction and subgrade improvement, laboratory testing, theoretical advancements and
contributions to design, applications of geosynthetics, numerical modelling and field performance evaluation.
KEYWORDS: urban transportation, compaction, design, geosynthetics.
RÉSUMÉ : De nos jours, les besoins en transports urbains (routes, chemins de fer, aéroports aériens et maritimes) nécessitent
d’importantes ressources pour le développement des infrastructures en vue d’assurer des services commerciaux rapides et efficaces.
Dans la plupart des cas, en raison de la croissance rapide des secteurs public, industriel, minier et agricole, les autorités se trouvent
confrontées à des difficultés pour atteindre les services escomptés. Un savoir technique est alors nécessaire en vue de maximiser
l’efficacité et de réduire le coût d’entretien. Le présent rapport général expose les avancées techniques majeures à travers le monde
synthétisant 33 articles émanant de 19 pays ; six thèmes clés sont classés : compactage et amélioration des assises, expérimentation en
laboratoire, développements théoriques et contributions au dimensionnement, applications des géosynthétiques, modélisations
numériques et évaluation des performances sur le terrain.
Mots clés : Transports urbains, compactage, dimensionnement, géosynthétiques.
1 INTRODUCTION
Modes of transportation including roads, railways, airports and
harbours demand the most essential infrastructure in
industrialised countries. While almost 90% of the population
depends on public transport every day in many developing
nations, in large developed countries such as Australia, the
mining and agricultural sectors almost entirely depend on the
efficient roads and rail services. Geotechnical aspects of
infrastructure design and construction play an important role
and face key challenges in optimising the performance of road
pavements, rail tracks, runways and ports, as well as their
maintenance throughout their operational life cycle.
Maximising efficiency with acceptable longevity and ensuring
the minimum cost of maintenance requires sound technical
knowhow, implementation of new and appropriate technologies
and effective administration of strategic public policies and
investments. In essence, the key phases of transport geotechnics
can be primarily categorised to general soil and rock mechanics
applications in design, development of theoretical concepts and
analysis, construction innovations, challenges and in-situ
quality control, ground improvement schemes including
compaction and problematic soil remediation, field performance
monitoring and data interpretation, laboratory techniques and
physical modelling, numerical simulation for design and
performance verification, constitutive modelling of pavement
materials, conventional in-situ testing and non-destructive
techniques for foundations, risk assessment and failure
prediction, among other topics.
TC202 (Transportation) of ISSMGE fosters the relevant
challenges through an active cohort of international
membership, and through an array of meetings, workshops and
conferences disseminates the new ideas, technical concepts and
innovative technologies to the worldwide geotechnical
community. The 18th ICSMGE (Paris) has attracted about 33
articles from 19 countries in the area of Transportation. These
papers cover the entire domain of transportation, but for the
purpose of this General Report, they can be predominantly
classified under the following 6 categories:
a) Compaction and subgrade improvement
b) Laboratory testing
c) Theoretical advancements and contributions to design
d) Applications of geosynthetics
e) Numerical modelling
f) Field performance evaluation
2 COMPACTION AND SUBGRADE IMPROVEMENT FOR
TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE
There are 5 articles included in this section. Two papers discuss
the salient aspects related to the application of novel techniques
in field compaction (Adam et al. 2013, Kuo et al. 2013) while
one article focuses on the site evaluation of the compaction
quality using an array of different instruments (Conde et al.
2013). Useful practical information related to the application of
ground improvement methods in a brown coal landfill site
(Kirstein et al. 2013) and laboratory characterization of cement
