Optimized management of railway networks, facing growing travelling loads and ageing of track components, requires a thorough understanding of degradation processes. Given ballast complex behaviour, its degradation is particularly critical in track maintenance management.
The thesis focuses on the development and refinement of a macro-mechanical cross-sectional model that can reproduce ballast settlement under long-term cyclic loading. The proposed approach integrates fast dynamics (train passage) with long-term evolution (ballast settlement).
The procedure, already established, must be further refined and generalised to include different scenarios. The simulation tool is intended to support line maintenance management decisions by predicting potential degradation patterns as well as to help researchers to further understand ballasted track degradation evolution in the presence of structural and geometrical singularities. The thesis will make use of experimental data collected from both regional and high-speed lines.
Contacts: Lorenzo Bernardini, Andrea Collina
