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Full-Text Articles in Structural Engineering
Failures Of Mainline Railway Sleepers And Suggested Remedies - Review Of Current Practice, Wahid Ferdous, Allan Manalo
Failures Of Mainline Railway Sleepers And Suggested Remedies - Review Of Current Practice, Wahid Ferdous, Allan Manalo
Wahid Ferdous
Over the last two decades, the premature failures of traditional railway sleepers have significantly increased the track maintenance costs. The primary obstacle to minimising this problem is the lack of understanding of the mechanism of sleeper degradation. This paper discusses the different deterioration mechanisms for traditional timber, concrete and steel sleepers and the potential protective measures to minimise these problems. This paper exhaustively reviews the failure mechanisms of these three commonly used sleeper materials with suggested solutions. Fungal decay, end splitting and termite attacks has been identified as the principal causes of timber sleeper failures. On the other hand, concrete …
Review Of Failures Of Railway Sleepers And Its Consequences, Wahid Ferdous, Allan Manalo, Thiru Aravinthan, Alex Remennikov
Review Of Failures Of Railway Sleepers And Its Consequences, Wahid Ferdous, Allan Manalo, Thiru Aravinthan, Alex Remennikov
Wahid Ferdous
Railway sleeper is one of the important structure that having problems with high maintenance and replacement costs owing to its early failure. This paper presents the causes of failures of the traditional railway sleepers particularly timber, concrete and steel, and discussed its effect on the railway industry. The review of literature indicates fungal decay, end splitting and termite attack are the typical causes of timber sleeper failure. In case of concrete sleeper, deteriorations are observed because of rail seat abrasion, longitudinal cracking, high impact force and chemical attack. Failures in steel sleepers are mainly due to corrosion and fatigue cracking …