Fast computation: a steady-state simulation of railways ballasted track settlement

Abstract

Geometryofballastedrailwaystrackisamajorconcerninrailroadssafetyand efficiency. Settlement of railways ballast has been studied to help railway infrastructure managers to keep infrastructures in shape and to prevent accidents. In this paper, we present an innovative numerical approach to study railways ballast settlement. Commonly used models representing a moving load need huge computation time. On the other hand, assuming static cyclic loading representation leads to discrepancies. Indeed, it does not conceder particularities of moving load. With this new model we want to avoid the drawbacks of previously developed methods. We developed a steady state algorithm to compute plastic strain in geomaterials and to study behaviour of ballasted railways track with an Eulerian approach. This way we improved model efficiency by drastically reducing computation time while considering mobile load specificities.