Study of Effect of Ballast Particles on Lateral Resistance of Railway Track Using Discrete Element Method

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Professor, School of Railway Engineering, Iran University of Science, Technology (IUST), Tehran, Iran.

2 M.Sc., Grad., School of Railway Engineering, Iran University of Science, Technology (IUST), Tehran, Iran.

3 B.Sc., Grad., School of Railway Engineering, Iran University of Science, Technology (IUST), Tehran, Iran.

10.22034/road.2022.128944.1715

Abstract

Regarding the increasing demand for axle-load and fleet operation speed in the railway lines under operation, provision of lateral-resistance of ballast tracks is raised among the owners of railway industries. So, different solutions are presented to increase lateral resistance of the track in technical literature. Several factors affect the track side resistance but the most important one is the interaction between ballast layer and sleeper. Literature review shows that the interaction between ballast particles and sleepers has not been definitely studied by consideration of particle behavior of ballast material in lateral resistance problem. Therefore a numerical model has been developed for a single sleeper by discrete element numerical software PFC 2D in this paper. The results have been compared with laboratory side resistance measurement results. Ballast grading used in this paper was according to the group 2 of Iran Code No. 301 and modeled sleeper was B70 concrete sleeper. To perform geometric modeling of the particles, clustering method was used as well as photography. Finally, regarding the results of the valid numerical model, sensitivity analysis has been performed on the parameters affecting the side resistance including initial upright load, ballast material properties, ballast layer thickness and ballast shoulder width.

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