An appropriate stress test to estimate the long term performances of high speed rail structures
High Speed Rail (HSR) projects are multiplying and need technological innovations to be economically, socially and environmentally reliable. The reuse of in-situ materials treated with lime and/or hydraulic binders for the capping layer of HSR infrastructures is a process in accordance with sustainable development. However, although stress paths in the treated capping layer are now well characterized thanks to numerical modelling, the long term mechanical performances of treated materials are not well defined. For the design of HSR structures, an estimation of these performances must be known. Stress paths induced by fatigue tests referenced from the literature are studied and compared with those obtained in the HSR capping layer. The results show that no existing test is currently able to reproduce the stress paths and the principle of a consistent test is presented.