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The behaviour of under-sleeper pads at switches and crossings (S&C) - field measurements

The behaviour of under-sleeper pads at switches and crossings (S&C) - field measurements
The behaviour of under-sleeper pads at switches and crossings (S&C) - field measurements
Major growth in rail traffic in many parts of the world in recent years has brought railway networksclose to capacity and restricted the time available for track access to carry out maintenance workwithout costly temporary route closures. There are, therefore, significant benefits in designing ormodifying ballasted track systems to reduce maintenance and associated access requirements.Under sleeper pads (USPs) offer the potential to extend ballasted track system life and to extend theintervals between routine maintenance. This paper presents and evaluates field measurements,made using geophones and high speed filming with digital image correlation (DIC), of theperformance of a renewed section of track incorporating two switches and crossings (S&C) over aperiod of two years. One S&C was fitted with two types of USP (categorised as medium and soft),while the other had no USPs and acted as a control. Measurements demonstrate that the bearerswith USPs fitted showed less variability in movement than bearers without USPs fitted. The provisionof soft USPs caused large increases (>40%) in vertical bearer movements relative to bearers withoutUSPs, although the medium USPs showed little difference. Increased movements of elongatedbearers supporting both tracks fitted with soft USPs led to increased bearer rotations towards theloaded track. This effect was aided by the rigid steel collar fixing in the middle of the bearer used inthis design of S&C, and raises questions concerning the desirability of this feature. DICmeasurements showed that the at rest position of the elongated bearers rotated towards the trackon which a train had most recently passed.
S&C, railways, ballast, swicthes and crossings
0954-4097
1049-1063
Le Pen, Louis
4a38e256-d113-4bba-b0d4-32d41995928a
Watson, Geoffrey
a7b86a0a-9a2c-44d2-99ed-a6c02b2a356d
Hudson, Andrew
c834356f-d618-49d2-a8cc-cd338e1a87a4
Powrie, William
600c3f02-00f8-4486-ae4b-b4fc8ec77c3c
Le Pen, Louis
4a38e256-d113-4bba-b0d4-32d41995928a
Watson, Geoffrey
a7b86a0a-9a2c-44d2-99ed-a6c02b2a356d
Hudson, Andrew
c834356f-d618-49d2-a8cc-cd338e1a87a4
Powrie, William
600c3f02-00f8-4486-ae4b-b4fc8ec77c3c

Le Pen, Louis, Watson, Geoffrey, Hudson, Andrew and Powrie, William (2018) The behaviour of under-sleeper pads at switches and crossings (S&C) - field measurements. Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part F: Journal of Rail and Rapid Transit, 232 (4), 1049-1063. (doi:10.1177/0954409717707400).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Major growth in rail traffic in many parts of the world in recent years has brought railway networksclose to capacity and restricted the time available for track access to carry out maintenance workwithout costly temporary route closures. There are, therefore, significant benefits in designing ormodifying ballasted track systems to reduce maintenance and associated access requirements.Under sleeper pads (USPs) offer the potential to extend ballasted track system life and to extend theintervals between routine maintenance. This paper presents and evaluates field measurements,made using geophones and high speed filming with digital image correlation (DIC), of theperformance of a renewed section of track incorporating two switches and crossings (S&C) over aperiod of two years. One S&C was fitted with two types of USP (categorised as medium and soft),while the other had no USPs and acted as a control. Measurements demonstrate that the bearerswith USPs fitted showed less variability in movement than bearers without USPs fitted. The provisionof soft USPs caused large increases (>40%) in vertical bearer movements relative to bearers withoutUSPs, although the medium USPs showed little difference. Increased movements of elongatedbearers supporting both tracks fitted with soft USPs led to increased bearer rotations towards theloaded track. This effect was aided by the rigid steel collar fixing in the middle of the bearer used inthis design of S&C, and raises questions concerning the desirability of this feature. DICmeasurements showed that the at rest position of the elongated bearers rotated towards the trackon which a train had most recently passed.

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Accepted/In Press date: 26 March 2017
e-pub ahead of print date: 28 June 2017
Published date: April 2018
Keywords: S&C, railways, ballast, swicthes and crossings
Organisations: Infrastructure Group, Faculty Hub

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 407775
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/407775
ISSN: 0954-4097
PURE UUID: d41974fa-0331-49f9-8bb1-6aeb8da5ff3b
ORCID for Louis Le Pen: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-4362-3895
ORCID for Geoffrey Watson: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-3074-5196
ORCID for William Powrie: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-2271-0826

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Date deposited: 26 Apr 2017 01:03
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 03:47

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Contributors

Author: Louis Le Pen ORCID iD
Author: Geoffrey Watson ORCID iD
Author: Andrew Hudson
Author: William Powrie ORCID iD

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