A critical review on the vertical stiffness irregularity of railway ballasted track

The dynamic performance of a railway track subjected to moving trains depends strongly on track support conditions. In reality, even for the well-constructed and well-maintained tracks, sleeper support stiffness and global track stiffness vary substantially along the track, which affects the train-track dynamic interactions, causing rapid...

Analysis of Railway Ballasted Track Stiffness and Behavior with a Hybrid Discrete-Continuum Approach

Railway ballasted track stiffness is an important indicator to identify supporting condition that ensures that the facility is well designed and functioned. Although many studies have been performed on track stiffness based on experimental tests and finite-element methods, the factors influencing the track stiffness have not been completely...

Coupled discrete-continuum approach for railway ballast track and subgrade macro-meso analysis

This paper presents a multi-layer railway ballast track and substructure model, where a coupled discrete and continuous method is used for macro-meso dynamic behaviour analysis under moving wheel loads. In this coupled model, the discrete element method (DEM) is utilised to build the superstructure of the ballast track (i.e. rail, fastener,...

Macro-meso dynamic analysis of railway transition zone: Hybrid DEM/FDM simulation and experimental validation

To probe into the mechanical behaviour of railway transition zone from the macro-meso aspects, a numerical model of transition zone is built that hybrids the Discrete Element Method (DEM) and Finite Difference Method (FDM). The DEM is utilised to simulate the ballast bed and sleeper, because it can consider the realistic ballast shapes and...