Project Summary: Poor drainage and a soft subgrade cause track instability, settlement, increased maintenance cost, and derailment. Subsurface evaluation and monitoring are essentialfor targeted track maintenance. Current technique using soil boring is labor intensive and time consuming method. Modern subsoil evaluation using electrical resistivity imaging will transform the railroad investigation and monitoring.

To develop model to determine the soil moisture content, pore water pressure and matric suction of the soil based on Electrical Resistivity Imaging (ERI). This study will develop SOP and application to use ERI to non-invasively explore & investigate water behavior in track for railroad track maintenance personnel.

CREATE Team has partnered with USACE ERDC railroad group.

The project will improve the site investigation technique for identifying large scale moisture variability and pore water pressure within the subgrade soil. The findings will help investigating a large area of the railroad to identify the potential hotspots for future washout or slope failure. This will increase the safety of the track, improve drainage, reduce settlement and derailment.