Evaluation of Stiffness Structure and Grouting Efficiency beneath the Precast Slab Track by Elastic Wave Tests

탄성파시험에 의한 프리캐스트 슬래브궤도의 강성구조와 충전성능 평가

Recently, precast concrete tracks are replacing ballast track for efficient and economic maintenance of track. Precast concrete railroad tracks are manufactured in factory, and transported to railroad construction site for installation. Therefore, quality of precast concrete track itself should be sufficiently good. On the contrary to the convenient manufacturing of precast concrete track, the installation of a precast concrete track requires careful steps. Typically, a precast concrete track is placed on an approximately 15-cm thick lean concrete layer. A mortar is filled between lean concrete layer and precast concrete track to adjust the sloping angle of a precast concrete track for a safe train operation at a curvy section. Then, the use of filled mortarproduces a void underneath a precast concrete track, which is harmful to structural safety of a precast concrete track undercyclic loading. Therefore, it is essential to make sure that there is no void left beneath a precast concrete track after mortar filling. In the continuous resonance method, the amplitude of frequency response measured using an instrumented hammer and an accelerometer is plotted against a pseudo-depth, which is half of the wave velocity divided by frequency. The frequency response functions are measured at consecutive measurement locations, 6-cm interval between measurement points, and then combined together to generate a 2-D plot of frequency response. The sections with strong reflections or large amplitude of frequency response are suspicious areas with internal voids and unfilled areas. The 2-D frequency response plot was efficient in locating problematic sections just by examining the color shade of a visualized plot in 2-D format. Some of the problematic sections were drilled to make a visual inspection of mortar filling. The visual image of interface between mortar and precast concrete track was verified using the validity of the continuous resonance technique adopted in this research.