Investigation and development of quality index for railway with Concrete Slab track

One of the main issues in track maintenance-management systems which is required for organizing rail line’s repair and maintenance activities, is evaluation of superstructure conditions. Slab tracks superstructure condition in respect of maintenance parameters is a qualitative issue which should be converted to a quantitative parameter in order to maintenance operation decision making and forecasting of rail road future condition in a management system. In this case the track structure condition index and track geometry condition index are used. However, a comprehensive method for evaluation of slab track superstructures isn’t presented yet, in spite of significant development of slab track systems in Iran and all around the world. The methodology which is given in this research, is used in development of evaluation models based on mechanical and field inspection. Field researches and inspections of some parts of main slab tracked rail road were done, in order to calibrating the model and its experimental implementation on a test route. track structure condition indexes in our case study track was 95,89 and 88 for fastener, slab track and ordinary rail group respectively, which shows that converting slab track’s components quality condition to quantity based on offered methodology and what we expected for, has appropriate result. It shows also that damages categorizing and its intensity limitation in order to determining different kinds of damages is suitable. The track geometrical condition indexes which are used in this research, consider mean parameter in addition to standard deviation. Geometrical index for case study is between 0 and 3.02 in slab track which satisfies sufficient requirements to let the train pass safely.