DYNAMIC RESPONSES OF RAILWAY ULTRA-HIGH-STRENGTH CONCRETE SLEEPERS UNDER EXTREME IMPACT LOADING

Abstract eng:
Ultra high strength concrete has been adopted recently in construction industry. Prestressed concrete sleepers (or railroad ties) are designed usually using high strength concrete (around 50-80 MPa) in order to carry and transfer the wheel loads from the rails to the ground and to maintain rail guage for safe train travels. The sleepers are installed as the crosstie beam support in railway track systems. They are subjected to impact loading conditions that are resulted from train operations over wheel or rail abnormalities, such as flat wheels, dipped rails, crossing transfers, rail squats, corrugation, etc. The magnitude of the shock load relies on various factors such as axle load, types of wheel/rail imperfections, speeds of vehicle, track stiffness, etc. This paper demonstrates the development of finite element modelling to investigate the dynamic responses of prestressed concrete sleepers using ultra high strength materials (over 100 MPa), particularly under a variety of impact loads. The 3D finite element model of prestressed concrete sleeper has been developed using a finite element package, LS-Dyna. It has been verified by the experiments carried out using the high capacity drop-weight impact machine at the University of Wollongong, Australia. The experimental results provide very good correlation with numerical simulations. In this paper, the numerical studies are extended to evaluate the dynamic behaviors of high strength steel wires and ultra high strength concrete; as well as their nonlinear responses under different parameters. The outcome of this study can potentially lead to the utilization and design guideline of ultra high strength concrete for prestressed concrete sleepers.

• Export as: BibTeX | MARC | MARCXML | DC | EndNote | NLM | RefWorks
• Add to your basket