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The Effects of Admixtures on the Mechanical Behavior of Preplaced Ballast Concrete for Use in Slab Track Systems

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Abstract

This research pioneers at investigating several mixture designs of mortar for preplaced ballast concrete, utilizing silica fume and superplasticizer in order to obtain the optimal mechanical behavior of mortar. For this purpose, a series of lab tests including compressive and flexural strength, and mortar fluidity have been performed and a model was presented to predict the mortar compressive strength. Secondly, adopting the Andesite ballast with 2–6 cm grading size, its point load index and consequently the mother rock compressive strength have been measured via a series of point load tests performed on ballast aggregates. Afterwards, using the proper mortar mixture design, many concrete samples have been constructed by injecting the mortar into ballast as coarse aggregate materials using developed injection apparatus and subsequently, their compressive strength have been measured. The achieved results demonstrate that the highest compressive strength is 53.4 MPa, which refers to the mortar with water to cementitious materials (w/c) ratio of 0.35, cement content of 850 kg/m3, and silica fume percentage of 10 respect to the cement weight. Moreover, as an applicable outcome of the research, a regression equation has been derived between concrete compressive strength versus the mortar compressive strength, w/c ratio, cement content and silica fume percentage.

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Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Notes

  1. United States Bureau of Reclamation.

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Acknowledgements

The research team acknowledge the support of the personnel of railway engineering school in Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST). The authors also give respectful appreciations to Ms. Jasmine Shahinpour for native editing of the paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Railway Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran

    Milad Hossein Esfahani & Morteza Esmaeili

  2. School of Civil Engineering, Bu-Ali Sina University of Technology, Hamadan, Iran

    Mohsen Tadayon

Authors
  1. Milad Hossein Esfahani
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  2. Morteza Esmaeili
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  3. Mohsen Tadayon
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Correspondence to Morteza Esmaeili.

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Hossein Esfahani, M., Esmaeili, M. & Tadayon, M. The Effects of Admixtures on the Mechanical Behavior of Preplaced Ballast Concrete for Use in Slab Track Systems. Int. J. Pavement Res. Technol. 16, 82–108 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42947-021-00117-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42947-021-00117-y

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