Special Issue on Advances in Railway Geotechnics
Published 03 August, 2026
Railway geotechnics is fundamental to the safety, reliability, resilience, and sustainability of modern railway infrastructure. The rapid expansion of high-speed rail networks, increasing demands for heavy-haul transportation, and the need to modernise ageing infrastructure have introduced new challenges in the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of railway earthworks, track foundations, and underground structures.
Meanwhile, the growing availability of monitoring data from sensors, remote sensing, inspection systems, and digital platforms is transforming railway engineering. Advances in data analytics, machine learning, digital twins, and data-driven decision-making are providing unprecedented opportunities to improve infrastructure condition assessment, performance prediction, risk management, maintenance planning, and asset optimisation. These developments, together with innovations in geotechnical characterisation, numerical modelling, and resilient design, are reshaping both research and engineering practice.
This Special Issue provides an international forum for the latest advances in railway geotechnics, with particular emphasis on integrating geotechnical science with data analytics and intelligent engineering solutions. It will feature contributions on track–ground interaction, ballast and subgrade mechanics, embankments and cuttings, transition zones, ground improvement, geohazard assessment, monitoring and sensing technologies, data analytics, digital twins, predictive maintenance, resilient and sustainable design, intelligent asset management, waste valorisation and circular economy.
Timeline:
Submission Deadline: 21 December 2026
Acceptance Deadline: 31 May 2027
Guest editors:
Daichao Sheng
Distinguished Professor, University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Daichao.Sheng@uts.edu.au
Professor Daichao Sheng is a Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering and an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow at the School of Civil, Environmental and Sociotechnical Engineering, University of Technology Sydney (UTS). He was the Head of School during Jan 2019 – Dec 2025. His research interest spans computational geomechanics, transport geotechnics, unsaturated soils, cold region geotechnics and environmental geotechnics. Prof Sheng is an elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Science and Engineering (FTSE), and a Fellow of Institute of Engineers in Australia (FIEAust).
Sanjay Nimbalkar
Associate Professor, UTS, Sanjay.Nimbalkar@uts.edu.au
Dr Sanjay Nimbalkar is an Associate Professor at the School of Civil, Environmental and Sociotechnical Engineering, University of Technology Sydney (UTS). He is a Fellow of Advance HE (FHEA), Chartered Professional Civil and Structural Engineer (CPEng), a Fellow of Engineers Australia (FIEAust), an APEC/IntPE(Aus) Engineer in the area of Civil Engineering and certified on the National Engineering Register (NER) of Australia. He is the recipient of the Institution of Civil Engineer's (ICE) 2014 Thomas Telford Premium award in the area of ground improvement. He is honoured with the 2019 Professor Joseph M. Sussman Best Paper Prize, the Editor's Choice Award for the best paper in the International Journal of Geosynthetics and Ground Engineering in 2020. He is the recipient of the 2023 Outstanding Associate Editor award from Frontiers in Built Environment (Switzerland), published by Frontiers Media S.A.
Yujie Qi
Senior Lecturer, UTS, Yujie.Qi@uts.edu.au
Dr Yujie Qi, an ARC-DECRA recipient is a Senior Lecturer in Civil Engineering at the University of Technology Sydney. Her research interests focus on sustainable road and rail infrastructure. She has pioneered optimisation and energy-based modelling of recycled materials. She has led national and international collaborations and delivered cutting-edge outcomes using large-scale dynamic testing facilities. Her stellar recognitions include: IACMAG Excellent Regional Contribution Award 2025, ICE-UK's 2023 Sir M. Visvesvaraya Prize, ISSMGE's Bright Spark Lecture 2018, ICTG's John Carter Young Engineer Award 2024, and the 2025-Donald Stanley Award by Canadian Society for Civil Engineering.
