Intermittent cyclic load testing of polymer railway sleepers

Abstract

Before a new type of railway sleeper can be used in track, standardised laboratory tests must be carried out to determine its suitability. In addition to static load tests, assessments usually include cyclic load tests consisting of millions of load cycles, representing passing trains during the sleeper’s service life. In these laboratory tests, the loading cycles are applied continuously without resting periods to condense the test time. Traditional sleeper materials (timber, concrete) possess elastic properties for which such testing is appropriate. However, polymer sleepers exhibit viscoelastic properties, such as creep, a loading rate-dependent stiffness and heating due to non-linearity of the stress-strain curve. Subjecting polymer sleepers to continuous cyclic load tests with a load frequency reflecting permissible track speed can cause the sleeper to heat up. Intermittent testing with pauses between numbers of load cycles is proposed in this paper as a possible solution. The aim is to propose a laboratory loading procedure that adopts a traffic-resembling load of a railway line, considering an effective compromise between polymer visco-elastic behaviour and time consumption of the laboratory tests. The loading frequency is kept at the desired strain rate for track evaluation, giving a representative sleeper stiffness and strength assessment. Exemplary tests with varying test arrangements and loading procedures were performed to quantify the effects of intermittent loading in comparison with continuous loading. The proposed method eliminated most of the test-induced creep and heat accumulation, resulting in a more representative stiffness and strength assessment, which justifies the proposed intermittent testing for polymer sleepers. The proposed intermittent procedure is an optional test regime in ISO 12856-2 for polymer sleeper testing.