Principles of determination of required railway track strength with the consideration for intensity of its use

Abstract

Load from rolling stock in contrast with weight of a railway track is dynamic and actually is transmitted to the top of subgrade through a ballast bed. That is why it is more complicated to get a value of strain and a form of its diagram on the top of subgrade, which is considered as an external load on the subgrade, than just from the weight of a track. The paper presents a method of calculation of an equivalent train load on a railway track. For the presentation of intension of equivalent loads the authors have considered two typical examples where they have analysed extreme cases with various loads. The paper shows results of calculations by formulas described in the methodology. The equation solutions allow determining a value of the equivalent load of any field of coverage of acting loads including at asymmetric loads regarding to limits of their restrictions. The authors have made a conclusion on expediency of calculation with the use of equivalent loads. As a result, they have formulated a final formula for the calculation of an equivalent train load on a railway track.