RIS ID

21778

Publication Details

This peer-reviewed article was originally published as Kaewunruen, S and Remennikov, AM, Experimental and Numerical Studies of Railway Prestressed Concrete Sleepers Under Static and Impact Loads, Civil Computing, 2007, 3, 25-28. Copyright Asian Institute of Technology.

Abstract

The present paper deals with experimental and numerical investigations of the static and impact behaviours of railway prestressed concrete sleepers under static and dynamic loads. A three-dimensional nonlinear finite element model of a prestressed concrete sleeper was developed using the general purpose finite element package, ANSYS 10. The model was initially validated against static test results. Using SOLID65 solid element, the compressive crushing of concrete is facilitated using plasticity algorithm while the concrete cracking in tension zone is accommodated by the nonlinear material model. Since the cross section of concrete sleeper is fully pre-stressed, the smeared crack analogy is impracticable. Discrete reinforcement modelling with truss elements, LINK8, is then more suitable to utilize. The pre-tensioning was modelled using an initial strain in the tendon elements. Perfect bonding between concrete and pre-stressing wires was assumed. Comparison with experimental static load-deflection response is presented for the prestressed concrete sleeper. Through the linkage between ANSYS and LS-Dyna, the finite element model was subsequently extended to account for ballast support and in-situ conditions for use in the impact analysis. The calibration of the extended model was successfully achieved by using vibration data. Drop-weight impact tests were carried out in the identical setup for verifications of the impact model. Validations were conducted where possible. Very good agreements were found between drop impact experiments and numerical simulations.

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