Railway Continuous Prestressed Concrete Bridge Design in Ballastless Track Turnout Zones

Wen-Kuei Hsu,Yu-Lin Lee,Neng-Hao Shih

doi:10.3390/technologies5020011

Wen-Kuei Hsu, Yu-Lin Lee + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/technologies5020011

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Abstract

Laying ballastless track on railway bridges has the advantages of reducing the train noise problem, improving passenger comfort, and reducing track maintenance costs. Therefore, railway bridges with ballastless track have gradually turned into a major trend in railway systems all over the world. In Taiwan, railway bridges with ballastless track have been in use for many years, with ballastless track turnouts also starting to be constructed in recent years. Where railway bridges with ballastless track turnouts are located in urban areas, special consideration must be given to the road crossings and the use of continuous bridges in the turnout zones. Accordingly, there arise a number of difficulties related to the bridge configurations or the continuous length of bridges being excessively long. Often, such situations necessitate the use of extremely large-sized bridge piers in the bridge design, or create the risk of serious damage to the pier structure should insufficient attention be given to any of the factors. This article will take a continuous prestressed concrete bridge as an example. The prestressed concrete bridge must be absolutely continuous, be able to include ballastless track turnout zones, and meet the needs of crossing roads. For this example, the length of the continuous prestressed concrete bridge is over 300 m. This article will also discuss the configuration of a continuous prestressed concrete bridge of railway, and—through the analysis of track–bridge interaction and temperature detection—provides suggestions on the optimal configuration model of the continuous prestressed concrete bridges, which should allow improper configuration and possible structural damage to be avoided.

Highlights

Laying ballastless track has become a basic need in railway viaduct projects due to the importance of train noise reduction, improvement of passenger comfort, and the need to minimize the track maintenance costs
These situations roads and adopting continuous bridge in the turnout zone. This often leads to bridge span necessitate the use of very large-sized bridge piers in the railway bridge design, and create the risk configuration issues and problems related to the bridge length being too long
Improve passenger comfort, and reduce track maintenance costs, laying ballastless track railway bridges and ballastless track turnout has become popular in Taiwan in ballastless track railway bridges and ballastless track turnout has become popular in Taiwan in recent recent years

Summary

Introduction

As previously roads and adopting continuous bridge prestressed in the turnout zone This oftenwe leads to consider bridge span mentioned, when configuring continuous concrete bridges, must crossing configuration issues and problems related to the bridge length being too long. These situations roads and adopting continuous bridge in the turnout zone. This often leads to bridge span necessitate the use of very large-sized bridge piers in the railway bridge design, and create the risk configuration issues and problems related to the bridge length being too long.

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