Post-fatigue Behaviour of Kekatong Glued Laminated Timber Railway Sleepers

Abstract

The availability of good quality timber log is limited as well as the depleting supply of wide width and long-length structural-grade timbers caused increase in price. However, the usage of timber sleeper is significant to certain location in the track system. Consequently, alternative to replace existing timber sleepers to another timber product is vital and glued laminated timber (glulam) has a potential. Numerous researchers on glulam timber sleeper are focusing on the performance of static flexural study. However, the performance of glulam sleepers under the flexural fatigue is less known. Thus, this study leads to conduct flexural fatigue test in order to identify fatigue resistance of timber sleepers and investigate its behaviour. In addition, this study is carried out to determine the residual strength of timber sleepers after imposed with cyclic loading. A series of test were