Abstract
Ballasted rail tracks are the most popular and conventional rail track foundation system primarily consists of ballast as a major portion by weight and volume. Ballast is a highly angular, coarser material with high bearing capacity, shear strength, and non-water absorbent, which is obtained by crushing rocks. The ballast layer absorbs and widely distributes the moving train loads from sleepers to the ground. With time, the ballast is deteriorated because of frequent cyclic and impact loads from train movements, which ended up with high-cost maintenance. Artificial inclusions are renowned remedial action to the above-mentioned issue. In this laboratory-based study, the effect of rubber pads and geogrids on the shear and deterioration behavior of ballast was evaluated by conducting large-scale direct shear tests under 30, 60, and 90 kPa normal loads with a shearing rate of 4 mm/min. Based on the experimental results, a combination of shock mats and geogrid is suggested which enhanced the stress, dilation, and deterioration behavior of railway ballast.
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Acknowledgements
This research work is supported by Accelerating Higher Education Expansion and Development (AHEAD) Operation of the Ministry of Higher Education funded by the World Bank (Grant No: AHEAD/RA3/DOR/STEM/No. 63) and the University of Peradeniya Research Grant (Grant No: URG-2017-29-E) are acknowledged with the appreciation by the Authors. The authors especially appreciate the staff from Nawalapitiya for their support in the material collection.
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Venuja, S., Navaratnarajah, S.K., Wickramasinghe, T.H.V.P., Wanigasekara, D.S.A. (2022). A Laboratory Investigation on the Advancement of Railway Ballast Behavior Using Artificial Inclusions. In: Dissanayake, R., Mendis, P., Weerasekera, K., De Silva, S., Fernando, S. (eds) ICSBE 2020. Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering, vol 174. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4412-2_5
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