Investigating the Effect of Pre-load on the Behavior of Rail Pads for Railway Tracks Under Quasi-static and Dynamic Loads

Abstract

AbstractNumerical modelling of railway tracks is important to understand the true behaviour of tracks and define strategies to reduce the impact of the generated forces at the wheel-rail interface on ride quality and other effects such as ground-borne noise and vibration. Most modern railway tracks use rail pads to reduce the train’s impact on the track infrastructure and to improve the dynamic behaviour of railway tracks. The rail pads provide other functions for the tracks as they modify and smooth the perceived roughness by the wheels due to tracks unevenness. Capturing the true behaviour of rail pads is significantly important to improve the accuracy of models of railway tracks. This paper utilizes a model of a track based on discretely supported beam to anlayse the behaviour of rail pads under quasi-static and dynamic loads by modelling the dynamic behaviour of the rail beam under the action of a wheel-mass and with harmonic excitation induced through relative displacement between the wheel-mass and the beam. Information and properties of rail pads as well as other track’s components are taken from the literature. The quasi-static loads are calculated based on typical information of trains. The developed model is used to examine the extent of deformation of railpads and whether this deformation is associated with linear or non-linear behaviour of the railpads.KeywordsPre-loadRail pad stiffnessNonlinearity