• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.455-470
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• 2016

In ballasted railway tracks, ballast fouling due to finer material intrusion has been identified as a challenging issue in track maintenance works. In this research, deformation characteristics of crushed stone-sand mixtures, simulating fresh and fouled ballasts were studied from laboratory and a 3-D discrete element method (DEM) triaxial compression tests. The DEM simulation was performed using a recently developed DEM approach, named, Yet Another Dynamic Engine (YADE). First, void ratio characteristics of crushed stone-sand mixtures were studied. Then, triaxial compression tests were conducted on specimens with 80 and 50% of relative densities simulating dense and loose states respectively. Initial DEM simulations were conducted using sphere particles. As stress-strain behaviour of crushed stone-sand mixtures evaluated by sphere particles were different from laboratory specimens, in next DEM simulations, the particles were modeled by a clump particle. The clump shape was selected using shape indexes of the actual particles evaluated by an image analysis. It was observed that the packing behaviour of laboratory crushed stone-sand mixtures were matched well with the DEM simulation with clump particles. The results also showed that the strength properties of crushed stone deteriorate when they are mixed by 30% or more of sand, specially under dense state. The results also showed that clump particles give closer stress-strain behaviour to laboratory specimens than sphere particles.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.13-21
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• 2017

Ballasted track has been used as track system for more than 100 years. Ballasted track has advantages of low construction cost, flexible maintenance, low noise and vibration, and so on. However, ballasted track leads to continuous settlement which causes maintenance. Recently, increase in speed, traffic volume, and weight of train requires more frequent maintenance. Fouling, well-known phenomenon of accumulation of fine materials due to intrusion of subgrade and breakage of ballast materials, expedites the settlement (i.e., irregular settlement) of track. Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) can be one of non-destructive tools that can evaluate fouling level of ballast. In this paper, a gain function based on the attenuation characteristics of ballast material is suggested in conjunction with Hilbert transform. Lab box tests and full-scale tests indicate that the suggested method reasonably classifies clean, fouled layers, and subgrade. However, additional study to eliminate effect of sleeper and to include the scattering features of the electromagnetic wave in ballast voids should be required in order to enhance the accuracy.