Cellular Concrete for Freight Railroad Applications

[jmig]

I am looking for someone who has experience using cellular concrete as embankment fill or abutment backfill, for a freight railroad.

My concern is the likelihood of the material to pulverize over cylces of E-80 load. I haven't been able to dig up any example projects or studies that have advocated the use of cellular concrete for freight rail applications.

 

[Ron]

I have not used it for railroads but have used it for roadways and buildings. The roadways have been through swampy areas and the building application was to reduce the overburden stress for settlement mitigation.

Depending on the material you intend to use, you can check with the manufacturer for mechanical properties. As with most cementitious products you'll find relationships for f'c, E, and Poisson's ratio. As for the cyclic loading, check the stress at the bottom of the layer and if the stress is less than half the flexural strength of the material, you should be ok for unlimited cycles. As for crushing stresses at the top of the layer, again keep that stress to less than half the compressive strength and you should also be ok.

I don't know of any specific studies on this, I'm relating cementitious material to cementitious material and those relationships hold for concrete. There has been some work done with soil-cement and you can find some relationships for this material (similar, but without the aggregate) in Yoder and Witczak "Principles of Pavement Design".