Development of a new high‐speed train load model for dynamic calculation of railway bridges

Abstract

Dynamic calculations of train crossing of railway bridges must be carried out in Europe in accordance with current valid standards for both new and existing bridges. The high‐speed load model (HSLM) trains to be used are defined in the Eurocode, denoted as HSLM‐A1 to ‐A10. In the near past, the results gained from these dynamic calculations of train crossing have shown, that the current valid HSLM model trains do not cover the bridge vibration response level for certain real operating trains. It turned out that the application of the HSLM‐A trains might lead to an unsafe design of new railway bridges and destabilization of the ballast layer may occur, leading to safety critical track position defects and eventually to train derailments. Hence, in 2019 the consortium TU Darmstadt, KU Leuven, Austrian Institute of Technology and REVOTEC was commissioned by the German Federal Railway Authority to develop a completely new European high‐speed train load model for dynamic calculations of railway bridges that should account for almost all current running operating trains in the European railway network. The project ended in June 2023 and this paper presents the steps carried out to develop the high‐speed train load model, denoted as HSLM‐C, and the results of validation calculations considering more than 300 existing railway bridges of different construction type.