High-speed Railway Geotechnical Problems

Distinguished Professor Daichao Sheng

The QLD state government is currently evaluating fast and high-speed railways within the SEQ Region, with one eye on the infrastructure being in place for the proposed 2032 Olympics. As per NSW assessments, the short to medium-term focus is the upgrade and optimising existing routes for inter-regional transport – which would be expected to include target train speed of 200 km/hour. In the medium to long-term, new routes would include alignments and rollingstock that would allow train speeds of over 250 km/hour. While it might be cost-effective and viable for Australia to import all transport components such as vehicles and control systems, we have to accommodate our ground conditions on which the high-speed railways are built. In this regards, geotechnical issues represent the key technical challenges for building high-speed railways in Australia. This talk presents some overseas perspectives of high-speed railway geotechnics, including some unique geotechnical problems like ground vibration and critical train speed, mud pumping and embankment degradation and cold region geotechnics.

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