The Effect of Gaps in Concrete Bearing Surface of Direct Fixation Track on Vehicle and Track Interaction

직결궤도 체결구 하부에 발생한 단차가 차량/궤도 상호작용에 미치는 영향

Various installation faults may lie in fasteners in the construction of a direct-fixation track by the top-down method. At an extreme, they may cause excessive interaction between the train and track, compromise the running safety of the train, and cause damage to the track components. Therefore, the faults need to be kept within the allowable level through an investigation of their effects on the interactions between the train and track. In this study, the vertical dynamic stiffness of fasteners in installation faults was measured based on the dynamic stiffness test by means of an experimental apparatus that was devised to feasibly reproduce gap faults. This study proposes an effective analytical model for a train-track interaction system in which most elements, except the nonlinear wheel-rail contact and some components that behave bi-linearly, exhibit linear behavior. To investigate the effect of the behavior of fasteners in gap faults in a direct-fixation track on the vehicle and track, vehicle-track interaction analyses were carried out, targeting key review parameters such as the wheel load reduction factor, vertical rail displacement, rail bending stress, and mean stress of the elastomer. From the results, it was noted that the gap faults in the concrete bearing surface of a direct-fixation track need to be limited for the sake of the long-term durability of the elastomer than for the running safety of the train or the structural safety of the track.