Discrete element method simulation of railway ballast compactness during tamping process

作者：Zhou Taoyong^*; Hu Bin; Sun Junfeng; Liu Zhongtian

来源：Open Electrical and Electronic Engineering Journal, 2013, 7(1): 103-109.

DOI：10.2174/1874129001307010103

• Change indexes
• Discrete element analysis
• Discrete element method simulations
• Qualitative analysis
• Railway ballasts
• Simulation data
• Tamping
• Vibration frequency

Railway ballast tamping operation is employed in order to restore the geometry of railway track distorted by train traffics. In this paper, based on analysis of tamping principle, the discrete element analysis model of railway ballast is created using the discrete element method, numerical simulations are performed to study the change of railway ballast compactness during tamping process. This paper presents the motion trend of stone ballasts as the change trend of railway ballast compactness in qualitative analysis, and the distance between stone ballast and sleeper as the change index of railway ballast compactness in quantitative analysis. By comparing simulation data of different vibration frequencies, an optimal vibration frequency is obtained. The simulation results accord with the actual industrial tamping operation, which verifies that the discrete element method is an effective method to evaluate the change of railway ballast compactness during tamping process.

• 出版日期2013