The Sichuan−Tibet railway is built under some difficult situations, including limited ballast bed profile, frequent earthquakes and large diurnal temperature variation. These difficulties cause insufficient lateral resistance of ballasted track, which is an urgent problem for the stability and resilience of the continuously welded rail (CWR). Aiming to improve and quantify the stability and resilience of CWR, the lateral resistance of frictional sleepers (designed as that normal sleeper with arrowhead shape groove) is evaluated with the single sleeper push test (SSPT). By performing SSPT, the increment of lateral resistance of ballast bed with frictional sleepers is measured. Shapes of sleeper grooves are properly designed and optimized (three groove shapes with the same size and volume but different arrowhead directions). Whether frictional sleeper applied to ballast bed (reduced ballast shoulder width) will provide enough lateral resistance for the ballast bed at Sichuan−Tibet railway line. Results show that frictional sleepers can increase the lateral resistance by minimum 7% and maximum 21%. Arrowhead directions significantly influence the lateral resistance, which is increased by 7% (same pushing direction) and 24% (opposite pushing direction), compared to normal sleepers. Therefore, strict attention should be paid to the laying direction when laying in curved sections of ballasted track. After reducing the ballast shoulder width from 50 cm to 30 cm, using the frictional sleeper (single arrowhead direction pushed in reversed direction) can still provide enough lateral resistance, which is the same value as a mono-block Type Ⅲ sleeper with 50 cm shoulder width.

@en

To enhance the stability of continuous welded rail (CWR) tracks, frictional sleepers have been developed. The frictional sleepers are new types of sleepers with grooves on the bottom, and different bottom grooves improve lateral resistances at different magnitudes. In this study, single sleeper push test (SSPT) and its model with discrete element method (DEM) were carried out to confirm how much arrowhead groove frictional (AGF) sleeper increases the lateral resistance of ballasted track. The SSPTs were performed to confirm the lateral resistance results, and also to validate and calibrate the DEM models. With the validated models, the groove factors influencing the lateral resistances were studied, including groove sizes (depth, width), arrowhead groove direction and groove numbers. The reason of lateral resistance improvement was studied at mesoscopic level, including the ballast-sleeper contact numbers and contact force chains. Results show that applying the AGF sleeper is able to improve lateral resistance by 7–24%, and it can provide enough lateral resistance after reducing ballast shoulder width from 500 mm to 300 mm. The AGF sleeper can improve the sleeper-ballast interaction by increasing sleeper-ballast contact number. The study is helpful for frictional sleeper design, further improving track stability.

@en

Lateral and longitudinal resistance of ballasted track are two main indicators for the track stability quantification. Aiming at improving the lateral and longitudinal resistance, nailed sleeper is studied with single sleeper push tests (SSPTs) and discrete element modelling (DEM). The SSPTs were applied to study how much resistance the nailed sleeper can improve, considering different nail lengths (100, 200, 400 mm), and also used to calibrate and validate the DEM models. With the validated DEM models, different simulation conditions were performed and compared to confirm the optimal nail length (100, 200 mm) and nail number (2, 4). Results show that applying nailed sleepers improves the lateral resistance by 53.7% and the longitudinal resistance by 39.2%. 4 nails, compared to 2 nails, can increase lateral and longitudinal resistance by 20.2% and 10.6% (nail length: 100 mm) as well as 37.0% and 33.5% (nail length: 200 mm), respectively.

@en

Research purposes: The longitudinal resistance of track bed reflects the ability of track bed to limit the longitudinal displacement of track and directly affects the stability of track. In order to further study the longitudinal resistance characteristics of ballast track panel, this paper established a full-scale model, carried out a series of tests to get the longitudinal resistance and displacement curve of the track, to explore the influence of the number of sleepers, sleeper crib fullness and sleeper spacing on the longitudinal resistance, and summarized and proposed measures to enhance the longitudinal resistance.

Research conclusions:(1) With the increase of the number of sleepers, the longitudinal resistance increases, but the average longitudinal resistance to each sleeper decreases. (2) The ballast crib fullness has a great influence on the longitudinal resistance of the track panel. When the crib ballast change from zero to full, the longitudinal resistance increases by 83.2%. (3) The sleeper spacing has a significant effect on the longitudinal resistance. When the sleeper spacing decreases from 600 mm to 500 mm, the longitudinal resistance increases by 12.27%. (4) The research results can be applied to the design, construction and maintenance of ballasted tracks, which can be used as a reference for improving the stability of ballast bed.@en