Dynamic Amplification Factors for Railway Turnout Bearers in Switches and Crossings
Eccomas Proceedia: COMPDYN 2017 6th ECCOMAS Thematic Conference on Computational Methods in Structural Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 2017
Sakdirat Kaewunruen, Chayut Ngamkhanong, Rims Janeliukštis, Ruilin You

Railway infrastructure is nonlinear by nature, scientifically proven by its behaviours, geometry and alignment, wheel-rail forces and operational parameters such as tractive efforts. It is often found that most train-turnout interaction models do not consider the time dependent ballast degradation. Such ballast degradation later causes differential settlement and aggravates impact forces acting on partial and unsupported sleepers and bearers. Furthermore, localised ballast breakages underneath any railseat increase the likelihood of centre-bound cracks in railway sleepers and bearers due to the unbalanced support. This paper presents a numerical simulation of a standard-gauge concrete bearer at crossing panel, taking into account the tensionless nature of ballast support. The finite element model was calibrated using static and dynamic responses using past experiments. In this paper, the influences of topologic asymmetry on dynamic amplification behaviours of crossing bearers under impact loading are firstly investigated. In addition, it is the first to demonstrate the effects of sleeper length on the design consideration of turnout bearers in crossing panel. The outcome of this study will improve the railway turnout construction and maintenance criteria in order to improve train-turnout interaction and ride comfort.


Keywords
Railway; Turnout bearers; Railroad bearers; Prestressing; Impact Analysis; Dynamic Responses; STRAND7
DOI
10.7712/120117
Hyperlink
https://www.eccomasproceedia.org/conferences/thematic-conferences/compdyn-2017

Kaewunruen, S., Ngamkhanong, C., Janeliukštis, R., You, R. Dynamic Amplification Factors for Railway Turnout Bearers in Switches and Crossings. In: Eccomas Proceedia: COMPDYN 2017 6th ECCOMAS Thematic Conference on Computational Methods in Structural Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering, Greece, Rhodes Island, 15-17 June, 2017. Rhodes Island: 2017, pp.3093-3101. ISBN 978-618-82844-3-2. Available from: doi:10.7712/120117

Publication language
English (en)
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