Investigating Seismic Behavior of Ballasted Railway Track in Earthquake Excitation Using Finite-Element Model in Three-Dimensional Space

Abstract

In this paper, a finite-element (FE) model including the track super- and substructure components was developed for seismic analysis of railway track. In the developed model, the beam elements were used to define rails and sleepers as components of track superstructures. Moreover, a series of lumped masses with springs and dashpots was considered for modeling the ballast, subballast, and subgrade as track substructure components. In order to validate the FE model, the results of seismic numerical analysis were compared with the outputs of a shaking table test. In the next stage, using the validated FE model, the efficient excited length of the track during the Kobe earthquake was determined around 40 m as the length that created the maximum internal forces and deformations in track components. Finally, using the evaluated effective length and adopting the artificial accelerograms with various peak ground acceleration (PGA) values in the range of 2 to 10