Engineering geological assessment for route selection of railway line in geologically active area: A case study in China

The Cheng-Lan railway links Chengdu, a central city in Southwestern China, and Lanzhou, a central city in Northwestern China. The railway passes through the Longmenshan fault zone (Wenchuan earthquake happened there on May 12, 2008), Minjiang fault zone, and Dongkunlun fault zone, which are all active. It runs over the Yangtze River and the Yellow River, and crosses high mountains and deep valleys. There exists, along the railway’s alignment, different kinds of strata of hard granite and soft, weak metamorphic rocks such as carbonaceous slate, schist, and phyllite. It is, therefore, a key issue for such an infrastructure construction to assess the engineering geological conditions and risks, so as to mitigate or avoid possible georisks and to offer optional designs. Geological survey and georisk assessment along the railway corridor are carried out. Special attention is given to active faults, earthquakes and seismic zones. Based on these, discussions about geological aspects for route selection of the railway are conducted and countermeasures for georisk control are proposed accordingly. Main conclusions are achieved as follows: (1) Geohazards such as landslides, rockfalls and debries flows dominate both the route selection of the railway and the engineering structures (e.g., tunnels or bridges) adopted; (2) Tunnel has been proved to be an excellent structure for linear engineering in geologically active area; and (3) In the case where avoiding is impractical, necessary protection measures should be taken to engineering slopes in high earthquake intensity areas, especially the area with earthquake of Ms. 8 or greater.