Measuring the area and number of ballast particle contacts at sleeper/ballast and ballast/subgrade interfaces
Measuring the area and number of ballast particle contacts at sleeper/ballast and ballast/subgrade interfaces
The number of railway ballast particles in contact with a sleeper may be relatively small. The discrete and non-uniform nature of these contacts may cause breakage and wear. This article explores the use of pressure paper to record the loading history of sleeper to ballast particle contacts over >3 million loading cycles in full size tests. The results demonstrate that the actual contact area may be less than 1% of the total, and that the number of individual contacts is in the hundreds. Under sleeper pads, a finer ballast grading, a shallower shoulder slope and changes to the sleeper material are found to increase the number and area of contacts.
ballast, sleeper, pressure paper, under sleeper pad (USP), grading
45-72
Abadi, Taufan
5e3abda7-80eb-4f39-921e-fae1f472d238
Le Pen, Louis
4a38e256-d113-4bba-b0d4-32d41995928a
Zervos, Antonios
9e60164e-af2c-4776-af7d-dfc9a454c46e
Powrie, William
600c3f02-00f8-4486-ae4b-b4fc8ec77c3c
1 April 2015
Abadi, Taufan
5e3abda7-80eb-4f39-921e-fae1f472d238
Le Pen, Louis
4a38e256-d113-4bba-b0d4-32d41995928a
Zervos, Antonios
9e60164e-af2c-4776-af7d-dfc9a454c46e
Powrie, William
600c3f02-00f8-4486-ae4b-b4fc8ec77c3c
Abadi, Taufan, Le Pen, Louis, Zervos, Antonios and Powrie, William
(2015)
Measuring the area and number of ballast particle contacts at sleeper/ballast and ballast/subgrade interfaces.
The International Journal of Railway Technology, 4 (2), .
(doi:10.4203/ijrt.4.2).
Abstract
The number of railway ballast particles in contact with a sleeper may be relatively small. The discrete and non-uniform nature of these contacts may cause breakage and wear. This article explores the use of pressure paper to record the loading history of sleeper to ballast particle contacts over >3 million loading cycles in full size tests. The results demonstrate that the actual contact area may be less than 1% of the total, and that the number of individual contacts is in the hundreds. Under sleeper pads, a finer ballast grading, a shallower shoulder slope and changes to the sleeper material are found to increase the number and area of contacts.
Text
Taufan-Abadi-UIC-Paper-Final-Revision_nontypeset.pdf
- Accepted Manuscript
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 9 January 2015
e-pub ahead of print date: 9 January 2015
Published date: 1 April 2015
Keywords:
ballast, sleeper, pressure paper, under sleeper pad (USP), grading
Organisations:
Infrastructure Group
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 374033
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/374033
ISSN: 2049-5358
PURE UUID: 1e7d58fa-e1bb-4686-8dbb-572689c7269c
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Date deposited: 05 Feb 2015 11:35
Last modified: 06 Jun 2024 01:50
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