DYNAMIC ANALYSIS OF RAILWAY TRACK FOUNDATION SYSTEM

Abstract

In past few years, railway transport has been getting attention due to its environmental friendly technologies and a mass transport system. Because of this, we need to increase the speed of train, carrying capacity and also number of the run. The most commonly used traditional track is ballasted track, in which the rails are rested on sleepers and tie with rail pad which is supported by compact ballast layer then a sub-ballast and in the bottom layer is subgrade soil. Due to its low cost of construction and easy maintenance, it is widely used all over the world. The train induced periodic forces under each wheel load which causes permanent settlement of the track because of ballast migration and deformation in subgrade which will cause high dynamic stresses on critical components of the track. So, an accurate dynamic analysis is needed to know the condition of railway track foundation system. The principal objective of present work to study the dynamic response of the railway track foundation system, by considering the mathematical model of the infinite elastic beam without damping and attributes of strong track vibration and ground surface waves initiated by fast-moving train. The effect of critical velocity and track stiffness on track vibration are investigated. However, four different finite element models of railway track with varying geometry are created in commercial software ABAQUS to investigate response at varying wheel load, track geometry, and different train speed. The result obtained by analytical model and FEM-based model are compared. The conclusions have been made between both the analytical and numerical study.