Embankment Stability of the Qinghai–Tibet Railway in Permafrost Regions
Publication: Journal of Cold Regions Engineering
Volume 32, Issue 1
Abstract
It has been 10 years since the Qinghai–Tibet Railway (QTR), constructed from 2001 to 2005, was opened to traffic in 2006. Experts from around the world, in the field of cold regions, have been paying close attention to embankment stability in permafrost regions of the QTR. Using ground temperature and embankment deformation data obtained by a long-term monitoring system along the QTR in permafrost regions during the years 2006–2012, the thermal and deformation stability of the embankments are analyzed based on variation of the artificial permafrost table (APT) and the magnitude of settlement, respectively. The results indicate that both the mean annual ground temperature (MAGT) and the types of adopted engineering measures primarily determine the variation of the APT and also dominate the settlement of the embankment. In regard to embankment deformation, most of the embankments of the QTR in the permafrost regions are in a stable state.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41571064, 41630636, and 41471061) and the Independent Research of the State Key Laboratory of Frozen Soil Engineering (SKLFSE-ZT-09). The authors thank the editors and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on the manuscript.
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©2018 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Apr 1, 2016
Accepted: Aug 31, 2017
Published online: Jan 3, 2018
Published in print: Mar 1, 2018
Discussion open until: Jun 3, 2018
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