Abstract
Prestressed concrete is very suitable for railway sleepers because of its many superior advantages in high performance, maintenance, sustainability, and construction. Prestressed concrete improved the structural performance which has stronger tensile resistance in comparison with common concrete. However, the long-term performance largely depends on creep and shrinkage responses. The effects of time-dependent phenomena on prestressed concrete sleeper are investigated. In the past, many investigators have proposed various material models to predict creep and shrinkage but those were mostly based on general reinforced concrete concept. The popular uses of prestressed concrete have led to a concern of practitioners whether those existing predictive models could be realistically applied to prestressed concrete. Due to high initial elastic shortening in prestressed concrete, the creep and shrinkage effects should be critically re-evaluated in flexural members. This study investigates and compares the effects of creep and shrinkage on railway prestressed concrete sleepers. The comparison between prediction models underpinned by European Standard Eurocode 2, American Standard ACI, and Australian Standard AS3600-2009 provides the new insight into the time-dependent performance of concrete sleepers installed in various locations. The outcome of this study will help rail track engineers to better design and maintain railway infrastructure, improving asset management efficacy.
Highlights
Railway sleepers, which are generally manufactured using timber, concrete, steel, or other engineered materials, are one of the main safety-critical components of railway track structures (Esveld, 2001)
The parametric results are generated for comparisons between Eurocode 2 (EC2), the American Concrete Institution’s code (ACI), and Australian Standard AS3600-2009 (AS)
The creep strain and creep coefficient behaviors are determined by only EC2 and AS3600, respectively
Summary
Railway sleepers (or called “railroad ties”), which are generally manufactured using timber, concrete, steel, or other engineered materials, are one of the main safety-critical components of railway track structures (Esveld, 2001). The impact loads can significantly undermine structural integrity and durability of railway sleepers over the time. Such actions can exacerbate the structural behaviors of the concrete sleepers affected by extreme or hostile environmental conditions. Shrinkage cracks can be further open from the dynamic actions, resulting in water and chloride penetrations, as well as carbonation and corrosion. On this ground, it is vital to understand the time-dependent behaviors of concrete sleepers in order to pre-design and riskmanage the concrete sleepers over their entire service life
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