Investigations on concrete railway ties suffering from alkali-silica reaction

Abstract

This paper investigated the railway ties affected by alkali-silica reaction in Shanghai and Zhengjiang railway stations. All these ties were produced by a plant in Beijing. The results showed that about 30% ties produced in 1980~1981 are damaged when used in the stations, while 61~85% ties manufactured in 1985–1987 were cracked now. It was found that load and wet and dry recycles could enhance the ASR cracking processes. Although compressive strength of concrete cubes cut from severely cracked tires are reduced 25%, static crack load of ties met the standard of class II.