Desired earthquake rail irregularity considering random pier height and random span number

In recent years, China's high-speed railway (HSR) line continues to expand into seismically active regions. Analyzing the features of earthquake rail irregularity is crucial in this situation. This study first established and experimentally validated a finite element (FE) model of bridge-track. The FE model was then combined with earthquake record database to generate the earthquake rail irregularity library. The sample library was used to construct a model of desired earthquake rail irregularity based on signal processing (SFT) and hypothesis principle. Finally, the effects of random pier height and random span number on desired irregularity were analyzed. Herein, an equivalent method of calculating earthquake rail irregularities for random structures was proposed. The results of this study show that the amplitude of desired irregularity is found to increase with increasing pier height. When calculating the desired irregularity of a structure with unequal pier heights, the structure can be regarded as that with equal pier heights (taking the largest pier height). For a structure with the span number large than 9, its desired irregularity can be considered equal to that of a 9-span structure. For the structures with both random pier heights and random span number, their desired irregularities are obtained by equivalent calculations for pier height and span number, respectively.