The purpose of the present paper is to analyze the mechanical behaviour of the railway sleeper. First a review of the existing various types of sleepers and of their geometrical and mechanical characteristics is given. The principal scope of this paper is the appropriate modeling (both static and dynamic) of the sleeper, with emphasis on the sleeper-ballast contact. This modeling is realized with the use of finite element applications. Stress and strain in the various layers of the railway system, flexibility of the sleeper, load distribution under the sleeper, are some of the major findings of the paper. A practical conclusion of the paper is the design of the ballast layer, as a function of the various parameters of the railway system.
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