A new method for evaluating the characteristics of railway capping layer

Cyclic triaxial tests are often conducted to characterise the behaviour of subgrade material under service loading imposed by traffic. However repetition of such tests becomes time consuming, laborious and uneconomical to realistically account for the spatial variation properties of these materials. Therefore there is a need for developing economical correlating methods to evaluate material properties. This paper reports an inexpensive simple semi confined displacement controlled uniaxial test method that utilises a rigid CBR cylinder and a loading plate of suitable size conforming to the particle size of the specimen. Monotonic and cyclic tests have been conducted using this method and the resulting load-penetration responses are further analysed for dimensional consistency using key variables, namely the rate of loading and moisture content of the specimens.