A Laboratory Study of Railway Ballast Behaviour Under Traffic Loading
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
A Laboratory Study of Railway Ballast Behaviour under Traffic Loading and Tamping Maintenance by Bhanitiz Aursudkij, MEng (Hons) Thesis submitted to The University of Nottingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy September 2007 Abstract Since it is difficult to conduct railway ballast testing in-situ, it is important to simulate the conditions experienced in the real track environment and study their influences on ballast in a controlled experimental manner. In this research, extensive laboratory tests were performed on three types of ballast, namely granites A and B and limestone. The grading of the tested ballast conforms to the grading specification in The Railway Specification RT/CE/S/006 Issue 3 (2000). The major laboratory tests in this research were used to simulate the traffic loading and tamping maintenance undertaken by the newly developed Railway Test Facility (RTF) and large-scale triaxial test facility. The Railway Test Facility is a railway research facility that is housed in a 2.1 m (width) x 4.1 m (length) x 1.9 m (depth) concrete pit and comprises subgrade material, ballast, and three sleepers. The sleepers are loaded with out of phase sinusoidal loading to simulate traffic loading. The ballast in the facility can also be tamped by a tamping bank which is a modified real Plasser tamping machine. Ballast breakage in the RTF was quantified by placing columns of painted ballast beneath a pair of the tamping tines, in the location where the other pair of tamping tines squeeze, and under the rail seating. The painted ballast was collected by hand and sieved after each test. It was found from the RTF tests that the amount of breakage generated from the tests was not comparable to the fouling in the real track environment. This I is because the external input (such as wagon spillage and airborne dirt) which is the major source of fouling material was not included in the tests. Furthermore, plunging of the tamping tines caused more damage to the ballast than squeezing. The tested ballast was also subjected to Los Angeles Abrasion (LAA) and Micro-Deval Attrition (MDA) tests. It was found that the LAA and MDA values correlated well with the ballast damage from tamping and could indicate the durability of ballast. The large-scale triaxial test machine was specially manufactured for testing a cylindrical ballast sample with 300-mm diameter and 450-mm height and can perform both cyclic and monotonic tests with constant confining stress. Instead of using on-sample instrumentations to measure the radial movement of the sample, it measures sample volume change by measuring a head difference between the level of water that surrounds the sample and a fixed reference water level with a differential pressure transducer. The test results from cyclic tests were related to the simulated traffic loading test in the RTF by an elastic computer model. Even with some deficiencies, the model could relate the stress condition in the RTF to cyclic triaxial test with different confining stresses and q/p’ stress ratios. II Acknowledgements I would like to thank my main supervisor, Professor Glenn McDowell, for his invaluable guidance and supervision throughout the whole research. This thesis would not have been completed without his support. I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to the following people for their advice and help: • Professor Andy Collop, my co-supervisor, for his helpful advice. • Mr. Barry Brodrick, Chief experimental officer, for his thoughts on both experiments and the thesis. His suggestions have always been excellent and helpful. • Dr. Nick Thom and Mr. Andrew Dawson from the University of Nottingham, Dr. David Thompson from Balfour Beatty Rail Technologies Limited, and Mr. Eric Hornby from Micron Hydraulics for their technical support. • Mr. John Bradshaw-Bullock from Foster Yeoman Ltd. for his help on providing the ballast for the experiments and Mr. John Harris from Lafarge Aggregates Ltd. for performing various ballast index tests. • All technicians and experimental officers in the School of Civil Engineering for their help with the experiments, in particular Ian Richardson, Andrew Maddison, Bal Loyla, and Michael Langford. • My fellow researchers in the School of Civil Engineering, in particular Wee Loon Lim, Cho Kwan, and Pongtana Vanichkobchinda. • The Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC) for funding this project. • Finally, my greatest gratitude goes to my family and Ms. Napaon Chantarapitak for their constant support, belief, and encouragement. III Table of contents Abstract............................................................................................ I Acknowledgements ...................................................................... III Table of contents ...........................................................................IV List of figures............................................................................. VIII List of tables................................................................................XVI Notation..................................................................................... XVII 1. Introduction.............................................................................. 1 1.1. Background and problem definition................................................... 1 1.2. Aims and objectives............................................................................ 2 1.3. Thesis outline...................................................................................... 3 2. Literature review...................................................................... 5 2.1. Introduction ........................................................................................ 5 2.2. Rail track............................................................................................. 5 2.2.1. Track components....................................................................... 5 2.2.2. Track forces ................................................................................ 6 IV 2.2.3. Track geometry maintenance...................................................... 8 2.3. Ballast ............................................................................................... 14 2.3.1. Ballast specification and testing............................................... 14 2.3.2. Ballast fouling........................................................................... 16 2.4. Particle breakage............................................................................... 20 2.4.1. Griffith theory ........................................................................... 20 2.4.2. Single particle under compression and Weibull statistics........ 22 2.4.3. Particle breakage in aggregate ................................................ 26 2.5. Behaviour of aggregate under monotonic loading............................ 29 2.6. Behaviour of aggregate under cyclic loading ................................... 32 2.6.1. Resilient behaviour................................................................... 32 2.6.2. Permanent deformation of cyclically loaded aggregate........... 42 2.7. Laboratory tests on ballast................................................................ 50 2.7.1. Box test ..................................................................................... 50 2.7.2. Triaxial test............................................................................... 53 2.8. Summary........................................................................................... 58 3. Ballast properties and strength.............................................62 3.1. Introduction ...................................................................................... 62 3.2. Ballast properties.............................................................................. 62 3.3. Ballast strength................................................................................. 65 3.3.1. Test procedure .......................................................................... 65 3.3.2. Test Programme ....................................................................... 69 3.3.3. Weilbull probability plots ......................................................... 69 3.3.4. Strength comparison by two-sample unpaired t-test ................ 72 V 4. Railway Test Facility .............................................................76 4.1. Introduction ...................................................................................... 76 4.2. Test facilities..................................................................................... 76 4.3. Instrumentation................................................................................. 84 4.4. Installation of materials .................................................................... 89 4.4.1. Subgrade................................................................................... 89 4.4.2. Ballast....................................................................................... 92 4.5. Test procedures................................................................................. 96 4.6. Test Programme................................................................................ 99 4.7. Results ............................................................................................ 101 4.7.1. Subgrade Stiffness and Moisture Content .............................. 101 4.7.2. Vertical stress on subgrade ...................................................