Performance of rail ballast stabilized with resilient rubber pads under cyclic and impact loading

Although railroads are one of the most popular modes of transportation in countries such as Sri Lanka, Australia, and USA, their rapidly growing populations and increasing congestion in road transport has created severe challenges to the sustainability of rail transport infrastructure, which in turn increases the de-mand for high speed and heavy-haul trains. Ballast is the foundation material beneath concrete sleepers that provides key structural support against the high dynamic loading exerted by moving trains. However, the deg-radation of ballast seriously affects track stability and longevity. In recent years the use of resilient rubber pads has become increasingly popular. In this study, large scale cyclic and impact load tests were performed at the University of Wollongong to understand performance of ballast and the subsequent mitigation of ballast deg-radation using resilient rubber pads. The test results confirm that the use of resilient pads significantly reduces the ballast deformation and degradation due to high cyclic and impact stresses.