Print Email Facebook Twitter Review of ballast track tamping Title Review of ballast track tamping: Mechanism, challenges and solutions Author Guo, Y. (TU Delft Railway Engineering) Markine, V.L. (TU Delft Railway Engineering) Jing, Guoqing (Beijing Jiaotong University) Date 2021 Abstract Railway ballast beds bear cyclic loadings from vehicles and deteriorate due to ballast particle degradation (breakage and abrasion), ballast pockets (subgrade defects), fouling (or contamination) and plastic deformation of the beds. Ballast bed deterioration changes the ballast track geometry, which leads to uncomfortable rides, exacerbates wheel-rail interactions and, most importantly, causes safety issues (e.g., derailment). To align the track geometry, tamping is the most widely used means of filling ballast-sleeper gaps and homogenizing ballast beds. Although many studies have been performed on tamping, some necessary research gaps still need to be addressed. To stress the research gaps, tamping studies are critically reviewed in this paper, and the tamping mechanisms, challenges and proposed solutions are introduced and discussed. This review aims to 1) help researchers discover important research directions related to tamping, 2) propose means for tamping methodology improvement/development, and 3) provide advice for developing novel railway track maintenance. Subject Ballast bedMaintenanceRailway ballastTampingTamping machine To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:45fdf7ca-7193-4a7c-8406-93dada5369f3 DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2021.123940 Embargo date 2023-06-26 ISSN 0950-0618 Source Construction and Building Materials, 300, 1-22 Bibliographical note Accepted Author Manuscript Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type review Rights © 2021 Y. Guo, V.L. Markine, Guoqing Jing Files PDF final_version.pdf 3.29 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:45fdf7ca-7193-4a7c-8406-93dada5369f3/datastream/OBJ/view