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Analysis of the Influence of Cracked Sleepers under Static Loading on Ballasted Railway Tracks

The principal causes of cracking in prestressed concrete sleepers are the dynamic loads induced by track irregularities and imperfections in the wheel-rail contact and the in-phase and out-of-phase track resonances. The most affected points are the mid-span and rail-seat sections of the sleepers. Ce...

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Autores principales: Montalbán Domingo, Laura, Zamorano Martín, Clara, Palenzuela Avilés, Cristina, Real Herráiz, Julia I.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4228732/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25530998
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/363547
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author Montalbán Domingo, Laura
Zamorano Martín, Clara
Palenzuela Avilés, Cristina
Real Herráiz, Julia I.
author_facet Montalbán Domingo, Laura
Zamorano Martín, Clara
Palenzuela Avilés, Cristina
Real Herráiz, Julia I.
author_sort Montalbán Domingo, Laura
collection PubMed
description The principal causes of cracking in prestressed concrete sleepers are the dynamic loads induced by track irregularities and imperfections in the wheel-rail contact and the in-phase and out-of-phase track resonances. The most affected points are the mid-span and rail-seat sections of the sleepers. Central and rail-seat crack detection require visual inspections, as legislation establishes, and involve sleepers' renewal even though European Normative considers that thicknesses up to 0.5 mm do not imply an inadequate behaviour of the sleepers. For a better understanding of the phenomenon, the finite element method constitutes a useful tool to assess the effects of cracking from the point of view of structural behaviour in railway track structures. This paper intends to study how the cracks at central or rail-seat section in prestressed concrete sleepers influence the track behaviour under static loading. The track model considers three different sleeper models: uncracked, cracked at central section, and cracked at rail-seat section. These models were calibrated and validated using the frequencies of vibration of the first three bending modes obtained from an experimental modal analysis. The results show the insignificant influence of the central cracks and the notable effects of the rail-seat cracks regarding deflections and stresses.
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spelling pubmed-42287322014-12-21 Analysis of the Influence of Cracked Sleepers under Static Loading on Ballasted Railway Tracks Montalbán Domingo, Laura Zamorano Martín, Clara Palenzuela Avilés, Cristina Real Herráiz, Julia I. ScientificWorldJournal Research Article The principal causes of cracking in prestressed concrete sleepers are the dynamic loads induced by track irregularities and imperfections in the wheel-rail contact and the in-phase and out-of-phase track resonances. The most affected points are the mid-span and rail-seat sections of the sleepers. Central and rail-seat crack detection require visual inspections, as legislation establishes, and involve sleepers' renewal even though European Normative considers that thicknesses up to 0.5 mm do not imply an inadequate behaviour of the sleepers. For a better understanding of the phenomenon, the finite element method constitutes a useful tool to assess the effects of cracking from the point of view of structural behaviour in railway track structures. This paper intends to study how the cracks at central or rail-seat section in prestressed concrete sleepers influence the track behaviour under static loading. The track model considers three different sleeper models: uncracked, cracked at central section, and cracked at rail-seat section. These models were calibrated and validated using the frequencies of vibration of the first three bending modes obtained from an experimental modal analysis. The results show the insignificant influence of the central cracks and the notable effects of the rail-seat cracks regarding deflections and stresses. Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2014 2014-10-28 /pmc/articles/PMC4228732/ /pubmed/25530998 http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/363547 Text en Copyright © 2014 Laura Montalbán Domingo et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Montalbán Domingo, Laura
Zamorano Martín, Clara
Palenzuela Avilés, Cristina
Real Herráiz, Julia I.
Analysis of the Influence of Cracked Sleepers under Static Loading on Ballasted Railway Tracks
title Analysis of the Influence of Cracked Sleepers under Static Loading on Ballasted Railway Tracks
title_full Analysis of the Influence of Cracked Sleepers under Static Loading on Ballasted Railway Tracks
title_fullStr Analysis of the Influence of Cracked Sleepers under Static Loading on Ballasted Railway Tracks
title_full_unstemmed Analysis of the Influence of Cracked Sleepers under Static Loading on Ballasted Railway Tracks
title_short Analysis of the Influence of Cracked Sleepers under Static Loading on Ballasted Railway Tracks
title_sort analysis of the influence of cracked sleepers under static loading on ballasted railway tracks
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4228732/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25530998
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/363547
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