Vehicle/track dynamic interaction considering developed railway substructure models

This study is devoted to developing many new substructure models for ballasted railway track by using the pyramid model philosophy. As the effect of railway embankment has been less considered in the previous studies in the field of vehicle/track interaction, so the present study develops the pyramid models in the presence of railway embankment and implements them in vehicle/track interaction dynamic analyses. Considering a moving car body as multi bodies with 10 degrees of freedom and the ballasted track including rail, sleeper, ballast, subgrade and embankment, two categories of numerical analyses are performed by considering the new substructure systems including type A (initiation of stress overlap areas in adjacent sleepers from the ballast layer) or type B (initiation of stress overlap areas in adjacent sleepers from the subgrade layer). A comprehensive sensitivity analyses are performed on effective parameters such as ballast height, sleepers spacing and sleeper width. The results indicate that the stiffness of subgrade, embankment and foundation increased by increasing the ballast height. Also, by increasing the ballast height, rail and ballast vertical displacement decreased.