Nonlinear behavior of rail fastening system on slab track at railway bridge ends: FEA and experimental study

Abstract

Rail fastening systems on a slab track at railway bridge ends are often damaged, which increases the maintenance costs. The serviceability evaluation of a rail fastening system on a slab track at railway bridge ends is based on the assumption that the stiffness of the rail fastening system is linear. The behavior of the rail fastening system on slab track at the railway bridge ends is studied in detail in this study. In the experimental model, the abutment and pier of the railway bridge were considered to be directly connected to two H-beams through a rail and rail fastening systems. A stiffness model of the rail fastening system for the finite-element analysis was established by performing a clamping-force test. In the finite-element analysis, the rail fastening system was considered as both linear and nonlinear stiffness models. The experimental and numerical results were very similar when the rail fastening system was considered as the nonlinear stiffness model. With the same uplift force acting on the rail fastening system, the displacement results of the nonlinear stiffness model were larger than those of the linear stiffness model. Therefore, it is necessary to employ the nonlinear behavior of the rail fastening system and investigate a displacement-based design method of the rail fastening system when evaluating the serviceability of the rail fastening system on the slab track at railway bridge ends.