Under ballast mats for railway infrastructure–a North American approach to component characterization

Railroads continually look for ways to extend the life of their track infrastructure and its components given poor track performance can lead to reduced transportation efficiencies. As such, under ballast mat (UBM) applications have seen growth in the North American (N.A.) freight railroad transportation market. However, current standard procedures quantifying the UBM’s properties and performance are provided solely by the German DIN 45673 standard tailored to European Mainline freight and passenger service. This lack of domestic testing procedures tailored to N.A. heavy haul freight lines provides challenges in implementing representative procedures to test materials where the UBMs will be exposed to higher axle loads. To understand how changes to the current procedures may affect the performance of UBM components, laboratory experiments were developed and conducted. Loading magnitudes, loading procedures, support conditions and testing setups were varied during multiple experiments. Additionally, an assessment of the capability of UBMs to increase the allowed track structure deflection under loading (i.e. reduce track stiffness) was also conducted. Results steaming from this work are ultimately intended to provide support to the development of representative characterization procedures and recommended practices for UBMs intended for use in the N.A. market.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Civil Engineering

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2018

Author dc:creator

• de Oliveira Lima, Arthur

Contributors dc:contributor

• Edwards, John Riley
• Tutumluer, Erol
• Dersch, Marcus Scott

• Railway infrastructure
• Under ballast mats

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2017 Arthur de Oliveira Lima

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/99415

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/99415