Flexural Behavior of Concrete Crossties under Different Support Conditions
Publication: Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems
Volume 143, Issue 12
Abstract
Successful mapping of concrete crosstie flexural demands to different railroad track support conditions can lead to an improved understanding of crosstie flexural performance and more representative design requirements. Even though the ballast layer typically provides significant pressure distribution variability under concrete crossties, understanding these support conditions is essential for accurately predicting bending moments along the crossties, a useful metric for both design and planning of tamping activities in railroad track. To quantify the influence of support conditions on concrete crossties’ bending moments, laboratory experiments were performed. New and center-cracked concrete crossties were loaded while subjected to different support conditions through the use of rubber pads designed to simulate the ballast support. Results show that bending moments at the crosstie center are quite sensitive and may even be underestimated in current U.S. design practices that do not currently allow for cracking. Additionally, findings indicate that rail seat bending moments may be overestimated in typical design practices. Finally, there was no statistically significant difference between bending moments of uncracked and cracked crossties for the investigated cracking pattern.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
This research effort is funded by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), part of the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT). The material in this paper represents the position of the authors and not necessarily that of the FRA. All laboratory experiments were performed by UIUC’s Rail Transportation and Engineering Center (RailTEC) at the Research and Innovation Laboratory (RAIL) at the Harry Schnabel, Jr. Geotechnical Laboratory in Champaign, Illinois. The authors also would like to acknowledge the following industry partners: Union Pacific Railroad; BNSF Railway; National Railway Passenger Corporation (Amtrak); Amsted RPS /Amsted Rail, Inc.; GIC; Hanson Professional Services, Inc.; and CXT Concrete Ties, Inc., an LB Foster Company. J. Riley Edwards has been supported in part by the grants to the UIUC Rail Transportation and Engineering Center (RailTEC) from CN, Hanson Professional Services, and the George Krambles Transportation Scholarship Fund. Josué César Bastos has been supported in part by CAPES Foundation, Ministry of Education of Brazil.
References
AREMA (American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association). (2015). “Chapter 30—Ties.” AREMA manual for railway engineering, Landover, MD.
Bastos, J. C., Dersch, M., and Edwards, J. R. (2015). “Determination of critical track conditions and their impact on the performance of concrete crossties and fastening systems.” Proc., AREMA 2015 Annual Conf., AREMA, Minneapolis.
Brown, M. B., and Forsythe, A. B. (1974). “Robust tests for the equality of variances.” J. Am. Stat. Assoc., 69(346), 364–367.
Caetano, L. F., and Teixeira, P. F. (2016). “Predictive maintenance model for ballast tamping.” J. Transp. Eng., 04016006.
Chen, Z., Shin, M., Andrawes, B., and Edwards, J. R. (2014). “Parametric study on damage and load demand of prestressed concrete crosstie and fastening systems.” Eng. Fail. Anal., 46(Nov), 49–61.
Fisher, R. A. (1970). Statistical methods for research workers, Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh, U.K.
Giannakos, K. (2010). “Loads on track, ballast fouling, and life cycle under dynamic loading in railways.” J. Transp. Eng., 1075–1084.
Glass, G. V., Peckham, P. D., and Sanders, J. R. (1972). “Consequences of failure to meet assumptions underlying the fixed effects analyses of variance and covariance.” Rev. Educ. Res., 42(3), 237–288.
Grassé, J., and Lange, D. (2013). “Field testing of concrete crossties and fastening systems for the understanding of mechanistic behavior.” Proc., 2013 Joint Rail Conf., ASME, Knoxville, TN.
Harris, D., Lutch, R., Ahlborn, T., and Duong, P. (2011). “Optimization of a prestressed concrete railroad crosstie for heavy-haul applications.” J. Transp. Eng., 815–822.
Manda, K. R., Dersch, M., Kernes, R., Edwards, R. J., and Lange, D. A. (2014). “Vertical load path under static and dynamic loads in concrete crosstie and fastening systems.” 2014 Joint Rail Conf., ASME, New York.
Marquis, B., LeBlanc, J., Yu, H., and Jeong, D. (2014). Volpe report on CSX train derailment on MN tracks, National Transportation Safety Board, Washington, DC, 41.
McHenry, M. (2013). “Pressure measurement at the ballast-tie interface of railroad track using matrix based tactile surface sensors.” M.S. thesis, Univ. of Kentucky, Lexington, KY.
Ott, R., and Longnecker, M. (2008). An introduction to statistical methods and data analysis, Cengage Learning, Boston.
Prause, R. H., and Kish, A. (1978). “Statistical description of service loads for concrete crosstie track.” Transp. Res. Rec., 694, 30–39.
Shapiro, S. S., and Wilk, M. B. (1965). “An analysis of variance test for normality (complete samples).” Biometrika, 52(3/4), 591–611.
Van Dyk, B. (2014). “Characterization of the loading environment for shared-use railway superstructure in North America.” M.S. thesis, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL.
Wakui, H., and Okuda, H. (1997). “A study on limit state design method for prestressed concrete sleepers.” Proc., Japan Society of Civil Engineers, Japan Society of Civil Engineers, Tokyo, 35–54.
Wolf, H. E., Edwards, J. R., Dersch, M. S., and Barkan, C. P. (2015). “Flexural analysis of prestressed concrete monoblock sleepers for heavy-haul applications: Methodologies and sensitivity to support conditions.” Int. Heavy Haul Association Conf., International Heavy Haul Association, Perth, Australia, 393–402.
Wolf, H. E., Mattson, S., Edwards, J. R., Dersch, M. S., and Barkan, C. P. (2014). “Flexural analysis of prestressed concrete monoblock crossties: Comparison of current methodologies and sensitivity to support conditions.” Proc., Transportation Research Board 94th Annual Meeting, Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC.
Yu, H., Jeong, D., Marquis, B., and Coltman, M. (2015). “Railroad concrete tie failure modes and research needs.” 2015 Transportation Research Board 94th Annual Meeting, Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems
Volume 143 • Issue 12 • December 2017
Copyright
©2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Apr 10, 2017
Accepted: Jun 19, 2017
Published online: Oct 14, 2017
Published in print: Dec 1, 2017
Discussion open until: Mar 14, 2018
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.