Construction of railway track using asphalt – ballast layer

Abstract EN

The work presented in this paper focuses on new trends in the construction of rail track using asphalt ballast layer.

Model tests were performed with ballast layer 150 mm or 200mm.

These thicknesses are the common range used in railway construction.

Overlaying a sandy layer 400 mm in thickness.

This condition represents a case where rail networks pass through sandy zones.

Two series of model tests were performed ; the first on untreated ballast and the second where the ballast layer was incorporated with inter asphalt layers.

A model footing 200mm wide and 400 mm long was placed on the surface of the ballast layer and loaded monotonically or repeatedly up to failure.

These dimensions were selected representing the plain strain condition which exists in real rail networks.

The layers treated with asphalt demonstrated substantial improvement in the load carrying capacity over the untreated layers.