Moving element analysis of high-speed rail system accounting for hanging sleepers

Abstract

It is very common in the ballasted track system that sleepers are not well supported by the ballast materials due to the uneven settlement of the ballast under repeated train passage. These unsupported track elements are often termed as hanging sleepers and they can lead to undesirable effects due to increased dynamic response of the train-track system, especially when the speed of the train is high. In this paper, we present a computation scheme in conjunction with the moving element method for the analysis of high-speed train-track dynamics accounting for hanging sleepers. The proposed computational scheme will be first verified by comparison with available analytical results. The dynamic response of a high-speed train traveling on a ballasted track considering unsupported sleepers is next investigated. Various factors affecting the response of the high-speed rail system including the speed of the train, the number of hanging sleepers and the pattern of the hanging sleepers will be examined and discussed.