Longitudinal resistance performance of granular ballast beds under cyclic symmetric displacement loading

Abstract

The longitudinal resistance performance of a granular ballast bed under cyclic symmetric displacement loading was studied based on a full-scale test model of ballast track structures. The change law of the longitudinal resistance characteristics of the ballast bed under variable displacement amplitudes was analyzed. The results show that: the resistance-displacement curves of a granular ballast bed are a set of closed hysteretic curves, indicating obvious energy consumption; a granular ballast bed softens gradually during the cyclic process with constant displacement amplitude, and the residual deformation rate increases nonlinearly with increasing cycle number; the peak value of the longitudinal resistance of lines decreases with increasing cycle number; the cyclic softening of a granular ballast bed is dependent on the displacement amplitude–the higher the displacement, the more severe the cyclic softening will become; after cyclic displacement loading is applied several times, the longitudinal resistance of the bed will degenerate obviously, and the higher the displacement amplitude, the higher the longitudinal resistance attenuation rate of the ballast bed will become.