Full Scale Tests and Structural Evaluation of Soil-steel Flexible Culverts for High-speed Railways

In this paper, results from full-scale tests on a corrugated soil-steel flexible culvert for railway traffic are presented. The bridge was instrumented with strain gauges, accelerometers and displacement gauges, measuring the response from passing trains. The aim of the measurement campaign was to gain knowledge of the dynamic behaviour due to train induced vibrations, both of the bridge structure and the overlying railway embankment. From the measured data, the load distribution and soil-stiffness can be estimated. The results also serve as input for calibration of numerical models that are used for predicting the behaviour due to high-speed trains.