Abstract:
Ballasted track is the traditional
and widely used railway track system in many
countries due to its numerous benefits. The
ballast layer consists of uniformly distributed
coarse granular material that acts as the main
load-bearing component of the track while
facilitating better drainage. The ballast
fouling is one of the major issues in ballasted
tracks where the voids of the ballast layer fill
with fine particles generated from ballast
degradation under repetitive train load and
from various other sources. Ballast fouling
affects the shear strength and drainage
properties of the ballast layer which finally
leads to track instability. A better
understanding of the effect of fouling material
on shear, degradation and permeability
behaviour of railway ballast is imperative to
maintain track performance. Also, the full scale simulation of large-size granular
materials at the laboratory through large scale testing facilities is important to capture
the real behaviour of railway ballast.
Therefore, this paper explores the results of
large-scale direct shear and permeability tests
carried out at the laboratory to analyze the
shear, degradation and permeability behavior
of railway ballast fouled with finer particles.
