Field Investigation on the Lateral Stiffness of Railway Track in the Curve with Linear and Nonlinear Method

The lateral stability of the railway track is one of the most important parameters that must be considered during operations. In the life time of railway track, the different lateral forces are applied on it. These forces are perpendicular to the main axis of the track and caused by the lateral component of the lateral frictional forces between wheels and rails, the applied lateral force from the edge of the wheel to the rails and rail buckling due to the variation of axial force of the rail. During the applying of the lateral force to the track, many factors such as rails, sleepers, ballast and fasteners will prevent the lateral deformation of track. In order to prevent the undesired lateral deformation of the track and also reduce the high maintenance costs, the lateral stiffness of the track should be increased. In this field investigation, the frictional concrete sleeper was first introduced and then lateral stiffness was studied through the panel displacement method of railway track of an actual curve with a radius of 250 meters by using the simple mono-block concrete sleepers and frictional concrete sleepers. Results show that the lateral stiffness of railway track increases approximately by 179% using frictional concrete sleepers instead of standard mono- block concrete sleepers. According to the field test results, in order to increase the lateral stiffness and thus reduce the lateral deformation, the frictional concrete sleepers can be used instead normal mono- block concrete sleepers.