Analysis of a Prestressed Sleeper for Railway Turnout under the Effect Static Load with a Unilateral Contact Model and Support Stiffness of Existing Railway Bed of a Railway Section in Vietnam

Abstract

In the process of analyzing prestressed sleepers for turnout on elastic foundations with large lengths, authors around the world often use the one-stiffness model of Winkler or the two-stiffness model of the Filonenko-Borodich and Pasternak. Railway bed stiffness is assumed to be a constant value from the design to the end of the operating process. In this study, the authors use a one-stiffness model to simulate the interaction between the prestressed sleepers for turnout and the railway bed, which helps to describe the contact and non-contact between the prestressed sleepers of turnout and the railway bed, the phenomenon that the many traditional models do not implement yet. In addition, the railway bed stiffness included in the analysis is obtained by testing at the field of a railway section in operation in Vietnam. The authors use the finite element method and combine it with the Newton iteration method. Accordingly, the analysis results of prestressed sleepers for turnout will be more consistent with actual behavior. We need to check the actual stiffness of the foundation before it is included in the analysis because the actual stiffness of the foundation gives more accurate results during analysis