On the Critical Velocity of Moving Force and Instability of Moving Mass in Layered Railway Track Models by Semianalytical Approaches

Abstract

This article presents a comparison between layered models of a railway track. All analyses are based on semianalytical approaches to show how powerful they can be. Results are presented in dimensionless form, making them applicable to a wide range of possible real-world scenarios. The main results and conclusions are obtained using repeated exact calculations of the equivalent flexibility of supporting structure related to each model by contour integration. New terms and a fundamentally different approach with respect to other published works underline the scientific contribution to this field. Semianalytical methods demonstrate that the intended results can be obtained easily and accurately. However, this benefit cannot be extended to a large number of models due to the simplifications that must be introduced in order to apply such methods. It turns out that even though the one-layer model is the furthest away from reality, it is easy to handle analytically because it has a regular and predictable behavior. The three-layer model, on the other hand, has many unpredictable properties that will be detailed in this article.