Toughness of Railroad Concrete Crossties with Holes and Web Opening

Abstract

Prestressed concrete sleepers (or railroad ties) are principally designed in order to carry wheel loads from the rails to the ground of railway tracks. Their design takes into account static and dynamic loading conditions. In spite of the most common use of the prestressed concrete crossties in railway tracks, there have always been many demands from rail engineers to improve serviceability and functionality of concrete crossties. For example, signaling, fiber optic, equipment cables are often damaged either by ballast corners or by tamping machine. There has been a need to re-design concrete crosstie to cater cables internally so that they would not experience detrimental or harsh environments. Also, many concrete crossties need a retrofit for automatic train control device and similar signaling equipment. In contrast, the effects of holes and web openings on structural capacity of concrete crossties have not been thoroughly investigated. This paper accordingly highlights the effect of holes and web openings on the toughness and ductility of concrete crossties. The outcome of this research enables better decision making process for retrofiting prestressed concrete crossties with holes and web opening in practice.

Self-Healing and Highly-Damped Concrete for Applications as Railway Sleepers and Track Slabs

“…especially for the expansions of metro, light-rail and urban railway systems, due to their improved multi-functional performance as well as the reduced lifetime cost and carbon footprint compared to the timber or other materials. However, the premature deterioration of concrete sleepers and track slabs (e.g., shear key) under high impact loading and excessive vibration is the major issue that jeopardizes the safety and durability; and then increases the lifecycle cost of concrete sleepers and track slabs [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12].…”