Abstract
Rail support modulus is an important factor in safety of railway track. This parameter is defined as support force imposing on rail length unit per rail unit displacement in vertical direction. Rail support modulus is important because it affects track performance and maintenance requirements. Both low and large modulus is undesirable. Low modulus of the rail support has been shown to cause differential settlement that then increases maintenance needs. On the other hand, higher value of rail support causes axle load to be distributed on fewer sleepers and therefore received dynamic loads for any sleeper and rail-sleeper fastening will be increased. Sandy desert areas are critical regions about the contamination of ballast. In these areas, flowing sand grains influence between ballast aggregates and increase the stiffness of ballast layer and the rail support modulus. In this paper, the results of a field investigation about the effect of ballast contamination on the values of the rail support modulus in sandy desert areas are presented.
Highlights
Track quality plays an important role in railway safety
In the similar field investigation related to the non-sandy areas, only the heavy load has been applied to the track and the light load was not applied to the track
Results obtained from the linear variable differential transformer (LVDT) for all locations with different percentage of sand in the ballast layer were further analyzed using Excel program to draw and compare them graphically and to calculate the rail support modulus
Summary
Track quality plays an important role in railway safety. One of the affecting factors of track quality is the track stiffness. Rail support modulus is a major parameter because it affects track performance and maintenance requirements. Increasing the width of ballast shoulder and or increasing fastener stiffness will increase rail support modulus [11] Another numerous factors affect on resilient modulus of ballast and on the rail support modulus such as maximum grain size, aggregate type, particle shape, moisture content and ballast breakage index (BBI) [8]. Sandy desert regions are critical areas about this issue In these areas, flowing sand grains penetrate between ballast aggregates and increase ballast layer stiffness and rail support modulus increases. Effect of ballast fouling in sandy desert areas on the modulus of the rail support has been investigated by a thorough series of field tests
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