Railway Transitional Zones: A Case History from Ballasted to Ballastless Track

摘要

The French high speed line network is for the most part composed of ballasted track. Nonetheless in 2007, a new experimental slab track was constructed in the new East European High speed line, from Paris to Strasbourg, operating at 320 km/h. Special transition zones then were designed and constructed in order to provide the correct stiffness transition between the two different structures. The main goal of this paper is to present the case history regarding the performance of these transition zones after some years of operation. For this purpose an in-situ experimental campaign was performed on track. In addition, numerical simulations were performed in order to provide a deeper insight into the mechanical behaviour of track and substructure. As a final application, the present work allowed us to define renewal works recommendations for these transition zones from ballast to ballastless track. The paper underlines the fact that the main challenges for an accurate transition zone design is not only to verify the stiffness transitions but also to verify the dynamic interaction between train and track and between superstructure and substructure components.