Sustainable upgrading of fine-grained soils present in the right-of-way of High Speed Rail projects

•We model the stresses in the subgrade of a structure of High Speed Rails.•The levels of the stresses in the capping layer have been calculated.•They are compatible with mechanical fatigue of stabilized fine-grained soils.•A thickness for capping layers made with treated materials is proposed. The upgrading of in situ fine grained soils treated with lime and/or hydraulic binders for a use as subgrade in common infrastructures of civil engineering is a process in accordance with sustainable development. But in the case of the projects of High Speed Rail (HSR), the expected life of structures and the stresses caused by traffic have led to ask about the fatigue mechanical behavior of these materials. Currently, because of the lack of knowledge, they are landfilled. In this paper, numerical modeling of the HSR infrastructure allows determining stresses in the structure. By combining these results with fatigue behavior, it is possible to estimate the thickness of the capping layer using treated materials. This process highlights that fine grained soils present in the right-of-way of HSR projects can be upgraded and used as materials for the capping layer.