Study on the optimum size of railway sleeper for ballasted track

Abstract

This paper discusses the effects of sleeper size on cyclic deformation properties of railway ballast under the cyclic loading. Two-dimensional FE linear elastic analyses were performed in order to investigate the effects of sleeper size on the stress distribution in the ballasted track. Based on the results of FE analyses, a series of full-scale cyclic loading tests were performed by using various sleepers of different lengths and heights. It is found that the track settlement in the state where a clearance gap exists between sleeper and ballast can be estimated by amount of displacement amplitude up to a full contact and a maximum displacement rate of sleeper.