Toughness of Railroad Concrete Crossties with Holes and Web Openings

Erosha Kahawatta Gamage, Sakdirat Kaewunruen, Alex Remennikov, Tetsuya Ishida

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

23 Citations (Scopus)
138 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Prestressed concrete sleepers (or railroad ties) are principally designed in order to carry wheel loads from the rails to the ground of railway tracks, as well as to secure rail gauge for safe train travels. Their design takes into account static and dynamic loading conditions. In spite of prestressed concrete crossties being most commonly used in railway tracks, there have always been many demands from rail engineers to improve the serviceability and functionality of concrete crossties. For example, signaling, fiber optic, equipment cables are often damaged either by ballast corners or by the tamping machine. There has been a need to re-design concrete crossties to incorporate cables internally so that they would not experience detrimental or harsh environments. Also, many concrete crossties need a retrofit for an automatic train control device and similar signaling equipment. In contrast, the effects of holes and web openings on the structural capacity of concrete crossties have not been thoroughly investigated. This paper accordingly highlights the experimental investigations into the effect of holes and web openings on the toughness and ductility of concrete crossties. The key outcome of this research is to enable a better decision making process for retrofitting prestressed concrete crossties with holes and web openings in practice.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-8
Number of pages8
JournalInfrastructures
Volume2
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 11 Jan 2017

Bibliographical note

Gamage, E.K.; Kaewunruen, S.; Remennikov, A.M.; Ishida, T. Toughness of Railroad Concrete Crossties with Holes and Web Openings. Infrastructures 2017, 2, 3. http://www.mdpi.com/2412-3811/2/1/3

Keywords

  • concrete sleeper
  • crosstie
  • design standard
  • holes
  • web opening
  • railway infrastructure
  • static performance

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