A structural analysis-based method for calculating the residual settlement of a railway track platform under traffic loading

摘要

A general computational procedure is developed in this paper for calculating the long term response, and more particularly the evolution with time of the accumulated residual settlement, of a traffic platform under the action of repeated vehicle loading. It is based on a structural analysis approach, which incorporates as an essential feature, the use of a cyclic constitutive law for the constituent materials, formulated on the basis of repeated load triaxial tests. A numerical tool has been set up with the help of a finite element code, in order to simulate experimental tests performed on reduced scale models of a railway track platform. A first encouraging comparison is finally made between the numerical predictions and the experimental results, as regards the long term evolution of the residual settlement.