Investigation into the behavior of ballasted railway track foundations through numerical analysis

Abstract

Railways are now the most widely used form of public transport due to recent traffic congestion on highways in several countries worldwide, which has raised demand for quicker and larger trains. Modern railway traffic has led to the beginning of hefty wheel loads and high-speed trains, which has increased track layer stresses and resulted in excessive vibrations under dynamic loading. So, there is now a major rise in the risk linked to train operations in terms of train safety, track foundation degradation, and track damage. Studying how ballasted railway track foundations behave under various train speeds is essential to ensuring the dependability and safety of high-speed trains. The railway tracks were also stabilized with geo-grid to reduce the settlement of the track. This research paper presents a three-dimensional (3D) numerical approach to imitate the dynamic reaction to the ballasted railway's track subgrade systems for high-speed trains (HST). This study determined the time history curves for rail vertical displacement for the different elastic moduli of track layers. Also, the position of the geo-grid in the ballast layer (from 0.1 to 0.3 m) is investigated. Geo-grid stabilization can reduce about 24% vertical displacement for train dynamic load in the position of 0.1 m from the top of the ballast layer. The obtained results offer valuable insights into the dynamic reaction of ballast railway track subgrade systems, which can be utilized to enhance the design and maintenance of modern railways.