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Abstract: This paper presents a model for simulating vehicle–track interaction at high frequencies for investigations of rail roughness growth. The dynamic interaction model developed employs a substructuring technique and the whole system consists of a number of substructures that can be modelled independently. The systems are coupled through the forces at the wheel–rail contact and the railpad. A coupled, rotating flexible wheelset, a flexible track model and a non-Hertzian/non-steady contact model have been implemented and results are presented here for a free wheelset on a symmetrical track system with initial random and sinusoidal roughness. Both rigid and flexible wheelsets are considered. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The study of railway tracks under high speed trains is one of the most important researches in the domain of transport. A reduced scale experiment with three sleepers is presented to study the dynamic behavior and the settlement of ballasted tracks. A large number of trains passing at high speeds are simulated by signals, applied with the help of hydraulic jacks, having the shape of the letter M and representing the passages of bogies on sleepers. This experiment offers results such as displacements, accelerations, pressures and settlements that allow to better understand the dynamic behavior of a portion of a ballasted railway track at reduced scale and to estimate the settlement versus the number of load cycles. It was found that mechanical properties such as the global stiffness of the track can have important variations during the experiment. The settlement was also found to be a function of the acceleration of sleepers and above all it was observed, for accelerations above a critical value, that the increase of settlement per cycle was very high. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The development of the ballastless slab track, with applications especially on soft soil in combination with loading by high-speed trains, puts several specific engineering demands. One of these is how to provide the required vertical stiffness of the track system. According to the most common approach massive soil improvements are applied. An alternative to this would be to increase the bending stiffness of the slab, e.g. by applying an eccentric reinforcement. Both solutions have consequences for the dynamic track and ground response. In this contribution, the classical model of a beam on elastic half-space subject to a moving load is employed to assess effectiveness of these engineering solutions by analysis of their influence on the generalized dynamic track stiffness. The aim is to minimize the level of slab vibrations, in order to prevent deterioration. The effect of variation of other track properties is also evaluated. It is shown that for high frequencies an increase of the track stiffness is most effective, whereas for low frequencies soil improvement is a better solution. It is further shown that a relatively high track mass generally decreases track vibrations in the relevant frequency domain and that the width of the slab is an important parameter to control the level of track vibrations. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]