Mumbai, Maharashtra, India | Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation
DFCC – Multimodal & International Rail Cargo Transportation Project which includes connecting high density Corridor (that is Connecting Golden Quadrilateral – Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai + Diagonals connection). This project is divided into 2 parts –Western corridor and Eastern corridor. JNPT to Vaitarna project comes under project comes under Western Corridor – From Dadri, Uttar Pradesh to Mumbai, Maharashtra.
Constructing railway track near by the ports is always been challenging since the foundation soil is mostly of soft marine clay and heavy dynamic loading are expected from High Speed railway which require effective time tested ground improvement solution.
This project stretch is from JNPT to Vaitarna is 109 km, out of which few km stretches nearby JNPT Port area and nearby Vasai creek area is covered by marine clay of depth 10m to 24m. In addition to weak soil strata, bogie load and speed of railway is increased. Project requirements was speedy and effective soil consolidation measure so that further track construction can be taken place within given timeline.
As per soil investigation, the depth of soft soil layer varies from 10m to 24m and heavy loadings are expected. Various Ground improvement techniques are soil replacement, Soil Stabilization with Geosynthetics, preloading, sand drain, stone columns, prefabricated vertical drains or combinations of any of the above as per the site conditions.
Ground Improvement with Stone column can be the one of the solution for this site, but considering large depth the effective function shall be question as well as the high consumption of stone make the solution costly. Considering all this aspects the solution with PVDs are the most suitable and cost-efficient Solution.
The ground improvement with PVD accelerates the consolidation of the soil beneath the embankment, They are more effective when used in conjunction with preloading. In this project, PVDs installation and preloading is adopted for faster mitigation liquefaction of soil. Techdrain PVD 3520U was recommended in triangular pattern with spacing of 0.8m and later followed by 3m preloading.
