PRACTICAL MODEL FOR RAIL TILTING AND ITS APPLICATION TO PERFORMANCE TEST OF RAIL FASTENING SYSTEM

Abstract

 Estimation of rail tilting under the design load is an important factor in the rational design of rail fastening systems. Rail tilting has been estimated using the practical solution based on the torsion theory. However, a recent study has reported that rail tilting estimated by the conventional solution does not agree well with the experimental values.
 This study aims to establish a practical and high-accuracy solution for rail tilting. First, a FEM model for rail titling is proposed and the validity of the model is examined by comparing the analytical values with the experimental values. As a result, rail tilting estimated by the model was in good agreement with the experimental values. Therefore, the results show that the model is available for predicting the response of a rail and its fastenings. Second, the model was applied to determine the loading condition of the performance test of rail fastening systems. The findings show that it is possible to evaluate the performance of rail fastenings with high accuracy as compared with the conventional evaluation.