Numerical and experimental evaluations of the impact attenuation of a rail-fastening assembly

The stability of railway tracks relies on a complex arrangement of rail, rail pad, rail clip, sleeper, and ballast. Impact forces from wheel-rail irregularities can lead to concrete sleeper cracking. Traditional experimentation to assess impact attenuation of a rail-fastening assembly (BS EN 13146-3) is both costly and time-consuming. In this study, an experiment-finite element analysis coupling method was utilized. Dynamic properties of the rail pad were experimentally determined and incorporated them into finite element analysis (FEA) to simulate impact attenuation, which was then experimentally validated. Investigating the damping constant ( c P ) and dynamic stiffness ( k P ) of the rail pad revealed that while increasing c P doesn’t significantly alter sleeper strain, reducing k P decreases the initial peak strain. Therefore, the impact attenuation is primarily influenced by k P . This approach not only reduces evaluation costs and time but also aids in rail-fastening assembly design, analysis, maintenance, and development.