Under ballast mats for railway infrastructure–a North American approach to component characterization

de Oliveira Lima, Arthur

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/99415 Copy

Description

Title

Under ballast mats for railway infrastructure–a North American approach to component characterization

Author(s)

de Oliveira Lima, Arthur

Issue Date

2017-12-13

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

• Edwards, John Riley
• Tutumluer, Erol

Committee Member(s)

Dersch, Marcus Scott

Department of Study

Civil & Environmental Eng

Discipline

Civil Engineering

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

M.S.

Degree Level

Thesis

Keyword(s)

• Railway infrastructure
• Under ballast mats

Abstract

Railroads continually look for ways to extend the life of their track infrastructure and its components given poor track performance can lead to reduced transportation efficiencies. As such, under ballast mat (UBM) applications have seen growth in the North American (N.A.) freight railroad transportation market. However, current standard procedures quantifying the UBM’s properties and performance are provided solely by the German DIN 45673 standard tailored to European Mainline freight and passenger service. This lack of domestic testing procedures tailored to N.A. heavy haul freight lines provides challenges in implementing representative procedures to test materials where the UBMs will be exposed to higher axle loads. To understand how changes to the current procedures may affect the performance of UBM components, laboratory experiments were developed and conducted. Loading magnitudes, loading procedures, support conditions and testing setups were varied during multiple experiments. Additionally, an assessment of the capability of UBMs to increase the allowed track structure deflection under loading (i.e. reduce track stiffness) was also conducted. Results steaming from this work are ultimately intended to provide support to the development of representative characterization procedures and recommended practices for UBMs intended for use in the N.A. market.

Graduation Semester

2017-12

Type of Resource

text

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/99415

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2017 Arthur de Oliveira Lima

Owning Collections