As a newly appeared defect under slab tracks in high‐speed railways, mud pumping weakens the support ability of the subgrade to slab track, bringing about deviations on the vibration responses of the vehicle, slab track, and subgrade. Therefore, this paper proposes a vehicle‐slab track‐subgrade coupled model based on the multibody simulation principle and the finite element theory to highlight the influences of mud pumping defect. As an external excitation to this model, random track irregularity is considered. In order to simulate the mud pumping defect, the contact between the concrete base and subgrade is described as a spring‐damper system. This model is validated by field test results and other simulation results, and a very good agreement is found. The vibration responses of the vehicle, slab track, and subgrade under different mud pumping lengths and train speeds are studied firstly. The deviations of vibration responses in high‐speed railways induced by mud pumping are then obtained, and the limited mud pumping length is put forward finally to provide a recommendation for maintenance works of high‐speed railways in practice.

With respect to the design of helical pile foundations, reliable prediction of pile settlement is necessary to ensure appropriate structural and serviceability performance. At present, most research into the load-settlement response is focused on the regular displacement piles (precast/cast-in-place driven displacement piles) while there is little research on the prediction of the load-settlement curve of helical piles in sand. This paper presents a new modified method taking Randolph’s analytical pile solution as the theoretical framework with the consideration of the nonlinear soil stiffness degradation corresponding to different loads and settlements. The proposed method for helical piles is verified by centrifuge tests of 9 helical piles in three types of sand (loose, medium dense and dense sand) and 4 helical piles in two field test cases with better agreement with test results compared with the existing method for driven piles. Also, the influence of different parameters of pile and soil on the load-settlement curve of single-blade piles is analyzed.