Rail-Bridge Interaction

Abstract

With the continuous development in the transportation system in India Long Welded Rail (LWR) and Continuous Welded rail (CWR) are implicated in rail system instead of conventional rail system with small length of rail with fasteners. due to the effect of braking, acceleration and temperature variation relative amount of longitudinal force and displacement may affect the serviceability of track in terms of buckling of rail, and excessive relative displacement between them. The bridge induces additional stress in long welded rail, Central portion of long-welded rail which does not undergo any longitudinal movement relative to bridge due to temperature variation induces additional stress in rail. UIC 774-3(E) has given guidelines to consider the effect of rail bridge interaction in the design of bridge under the effect of temperature variation, acceleration and braking force. Numerous studies have been carried out to investigate the effect of rail bridge interaction by using finite element method-based software. Experimental studies were also conducted on actual bridge structures to validate the result of analytical method. In the first stage of dissertation work to study the rail bridge interaction, 3-span composite I-girder bridge is modelled using FEM in Midas Civil software and analysis is carried out for temperature variation and moving load. In the 2nd stage of dissertation work, effect of seismic behaviour of a bridge is studied on the rail stresses. For this study, a 2-span steel girder bridge is modelled using FEM and effect of Rail-bridge interaction on dynamic characteristics of bridge is studied. The effect of seismic force on behaviour of rail and bridge is studies and Rail break analysis is also carried out to study its effect on the response of the bridge.