Influence of Type of Sleeper–Ballast Interface on the Shear Behaviour of Railway Ballast: An Experimental and Numerical Study

The shear resistance at the sleeper–ballast interface of a ballasted track is an important contributor in maintaining stability under faster and heavier axle loads where ballast undergoes significant lateral sliding. Different types interfaces based on type sleeper arrangements, such as concrete sleepers, timber pads (USPs) attached to sleepers influence railway tracks. Therefore, this study degradation behaviour concrete–ballast, timber–ballast, USP–ballast were examined laboratory using large-scale direct tests 60 kPa normal stress. use waste materials construction civil infrastructure gaining lot interest engineering community. addition commercial USPs manufactured raw materials, recycled from granulates end-of-life rubber tyres also tested study. discrete element modelling (DEM) approach was used predict 30, 90, 120, 150, 180 stresses. bonded particle model (BPM) adopted DEM simulate effects breakage during shearing. results exhibited that both significantly improve while reducing compared interfaces.