Development of a Simple Method to Predict Fatigue Life of Railway Slab Track

Fatigue is one of the most effective parameters on the life cycle of the railway slab track. In this paper, a simple method is developed to estimate the life cycle of railway slab track based on the concrete fatigue. For this purpose, a mathematical/analytical model consists of two layered beams laid on elastic foundation is used to calculate the time history of stress induced in the concrete slab. Rain-flow counting method was used to count the stress cycles of the obtained time history. Finally, the life cycle of railway concrete slab track has been calculated according to the tensile fatigue behavior of concrete and stress cycles. The results obtained in this research indicate that as thickness of concrete slab and 28 days compressive strength of the concrete are increased, the life cycle of concrete slab track is increased. When the subgrade stiffness of concrete slab is increased, the life cycle of slab track is raised negligibly. Moreover, when the traffic volume passed over the track is increased, the life cycle of slab track is decreased dramatically.