Finite element stress and strain analysis of the steel railway track

Abstract

In this paper a static analysis of Indian Railway track is presented. The track is considered to be a beam on elastic foundation of Winkler type. The Winkler type foundation is presented here in two ways: Continuous and discrete support form. Indian Rail profile R60 data are applied to obtain analytical and numerical results. The governing differential equation and finite element formulation of the beam is taken into the account. Two loading pattern is considered: single point load of 98 KN corresponding to a single wheel and two pairs of wheel loads of same magnitude at each of the contact point. The results obtained from the two formulation provide track displacement, bending moment and shear force variation in an around the contact region. These results for track displacement are simultaneously compared with those obtained from Euler-Bernoulli beam theory and Timoshenko beam theory. The analysis indicate discrete elastic support assumption offer closer matching with experimental results available in literature than those from continuous elastic support condition. This study can be viewed as a foundation for future dynamic and vibration analysis of the track.