Evaluation of Railway Components on CWR Track Buckling

Track buckling is formation of large lateral misalignments due to high compressive thermal stresses in continuous welded rail (CWR) tracks and often results in catastrophic derailments. Investigating the actual behavior of this phenomenon is a complex interaction between the vertical, lateral and torsional modes. In the present study, the effects of different superstructure components such as rails, sleepers, fasteners and ballast materials on lateral stability of CWR tracks have determined utilizing a three-dimensional developed model. The parametric studies have been done for both straight and curvilinear tracks. The validity of the model is verified through comparison with theoretic results and other experimental works. The studies show that the rails and ballast materials have highly affect on track