Abstract
Iraq is planning to expand and rehabilitate its current railway network, thus demanding huge amounts of proper ballast material. There are three common quarries in Iraq, Sinjaar in the northern sector, Al-Qaim in western desert and Najaf-sea in the middle and southern parts of Iraq. The selection of proper track ballast material is of prime importance in design and construction of railway projects. The single particle-crushing test is a simple indirect tensile test that provides useful data for the selection of the material. Two types of railway ballast materials from (Najaf-sea and Al-Qaim) quarries are commonly used in the construction of railway in Iraq. The single particle-crushing test was performed for various ballast sizes, and the obtained data were analyzed using Weibull analysis. Najaf-sea crushed stones indicate higher tensile strength for all particle sizes compared to corresponding particle sizes of Al-Qaim crushed stone. In addition, an inverse linear relationship had obtained, between tensile strength and particle size with R 2 (0.837 and 0.979) for Al-Qaim and Najaf-sea crushed stone, respectively, such relationships are important in evaluating the suitability of the materials in terms of the survival probability
Similar content being viewed by others
Abbreviations
- b :
-
Size index
- d :
-
Particles size
- d i :
-
Initial size
- d f :
-
Average size at failure
- F :
-
Applied force
- F f :
-
Diametric fracture force
- K :
-
Material constant
- m :
-
The Weibull modulus
- n :
-
Number of V o times, number of samples
- P s :
-
Survival probability
- P s (d):
-
Survival probability of a single particle of size d
- P s (V o ):
-
The survival probability of V o
- R :
-
Reliability
- V :
-
Total volume V = nV o
- V o :
-
Volume of element
- α:
-
Confidence interval
- σ:
-
Tensile stress
- σav :
-
Average stress at failure
- σ f :
-
Tensile stress at failure
- σ o :
-
Stress for specimen of volume V o
- σod :
-
Stress for particles of size (d) such that 37 % of tested particles survive
References
Davidge RW (1979) Mechanical behavior of ceramics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
DeCoursey WJ (2003) Statistics and probability for engineering applications with Microsoft ® Excel. Elsevier Science (USA), Amsterdam, pp 155–156
Lee DM (1992) The angles of friction of granular fills. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge
McDowell GR (2002) On the yielding and plastic compression of sand. Soils Found 42(1):139–145
McDowell GR, Amon A (2000) The applicability of Weibull analysis to the fracture of soil particles. Soils Found 40(5):133–141
McDowell GR, Bolton MD (1998) On the micromechanics of crushable aggregates. Géotechnique 48(5):667–679
McDowell GR, Bolton MD, Robertson D (1996) The fractal crushing of granular materials. J Mech Phys Solids 44(12):2079–2102
Meeker WQ, Hahn GJ, Doganaksoy N (2004) Planning life tests for reliability demonstration. Quality Progress 37(8):80–82
Montgomery DC, Runger GC (2003) Applied statistics and probability for engineers, 3rd edn, Arizona State University, Wiley, London, pp 240–241
Ryan TP (2007) Modern engineering statistics. Wiley, London, pp 477–478
Weibull W (1951) A statistical distribution function of wide applicability. J Appl Mech 18:293–297
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Al-Saoudi, N.K.S., Hassan, K.H. Evaluation of Indirect Tensile Strength of Track Ballast Using Weibull Statistics. Geotech Geol Eng 30, 1097–1102 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10706-012-9525-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10706-012-9525-2