Vertical drainage of compressible soils under the Moroccan high-speed railway line

Abstract

This research work presents the high-speed railway line (HSRL) case study constructed on soft soils deposits. The performance of the improvement method combining both PVD’s (Prefabricated vertical drains) and surcharge preloading was evaluated herein based on numerical simulation approach to predict the induced deformations during the HSRL construction phase. For this aim, the performance of the PVD-assisted preloading was evaluated based on in situ measurement database from a selected well instrumented embankment. From the results, it was observed that the use of the PVD and preloading was found as the most efficient improvement method for improved section. In addition, multiple modelling approaches were used for the studied section to evaluate the usefulness of the published literature on the PVD- surcharge system performance. For that, is was concluded that the well-developed numerical approaches in the literature is an encouraging factor for using the PVD-preloading improvement method in both practice and research.