Debris flow occurring in mountainous areas can cause issues to railway tracks. Debris flow may cause large track deformation and even track breakage and introduce server ballast fouling afterwards. After the flash of a debris flow, the fine particles can be retained in the ballast layer and significantly reduce track drainage, leading to lower bearing capacity and a higher risk of track lateral stability problems. Moreover, these solid particles may deposit on the railway surface and endanger the train directly. Unfortunately, those debris flow introduced track issues have not been thoroughly investigated. This study presents a numerical investigation of the impact of the debris flow on the railway track. Various factors governing the debris flow are considered, including particle size and solid fraction. Besides, those factors affecting the ballast are also discussed, such as fouling condition and initial void ratio. A coupled computational fluid dynamics and discrete element method (CFD-DEM) approach is developed to capture the interactions between particles/particles, water/air, and particles/fluid. The results from this study may help the railway to improve track resilience before the debris flow and to improve maintenance strategy after the debris flow flashing.
A CFD-DEM Based Numerical Investigation of Debris Flow on Ballasted Railway Track
2023
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
Unknown
Metadata by DOAJ is licensed under CC BY-SA 1.0
Influence of Ballast Fouling on Reinforced Ballasted Railway Track—A Numerical Investigation
Springer Verlag | 2024
|Experimental investigation into the longitudinal resistance of ballasted railway track
SAGE Publications | 2021
|Concrete railway sleepers for the optimisation of ballasted track
IuD Bahn | 2004
|Ballasted Track versus Ballastless Track
Trans Tech Publications | 2015
|Eurobalt optimises ballasted track
IuD Bahn | 2000
|