Dynamic Behavior Analysis of High-Speed Railway Ballast under Moving Vehicle Loads Using Discrete Element Method

AbstractConsidering the real irregular shapes of ballast particles and complete track skeleton, a two-dimensional discrete element model is built to investigate the dynamic behavior of high-speed railway (HSR) ballasted track. Taking the moving wheel loads obtained from railway vehicle-track coupled dynamics simulation as the excitation inputs, the dynamic behavior of ballast particles in terms of contact force, stress, and vibration response are simulated using the discrete element model. Numerical results show that the ballast particles within the depth of 200 mm under sleepers would be most likely to carry a higher stress level when a vehicle passes by. Vibration amplitudes of ballast particles increase with the increase of vehicle speed, and the acceleration amplitudes rise sharply when the vehicle speed is higher than 200 km/h. Spectrum analyses indicate that the dominant frequencies of particle displacement and velocity are lower than 100 Hz, whereas the acceleration responses contain not only low-f...

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