A Scaled Field Test and Numerical Modeling for Jointless Turnout/Bridge Interaction under Temperature Effect

Recently jointless turnout on bridges is a research focus and difficulty point in Chinese Passenger Dedicated Line (PDL) construction. Due to the high restriction of railway landform, jointless turnout on bridges or viaducts will be more and more applied on PDLs. In this paper, a test model for the jointless turnout on bridges was conducted with a scale of 1:3, in which different heating up facilities were applied for model turnout, model track slab and model bridge, respectively. In this test, additional longitudinal forces and additional longitudinal displacements of stock rail, force-transferring components were measured in order to research the interaction between jointless turnout and bridges. Besides, a finite element model of turnout -track slab-bridge-pier was established, in which additional longitudinal forces and additional longitudinal displacements of different components were able to be gained under the same load cases with model test in the system. By comparing the results of model test and theoretical compute, we can obtain that the two results have little differences and similar change rules, which primarily shows correctness of calculating theory. Therefore, the calculating model and method for jointless turnout on bridges was considered to be reasonable.