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Vulnerability of Railway Switches and Crossings Exposed to Flooding Conditions

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Resilient Infrastructure

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering ((LNCE,volume 202))

Abstract

Turnouts are a part of modern railway tracks to divert railway traffic from one route to another route. Their complex geometry and structure impose significant dynamic track loads. Particularly, common crossings laid on ballasted tracks are well-known among the infrastructure managers for their drawbacks. Numerous studies have been devoted to analyze a railway turnout with a common crossing. Nevertheless, almost all of them considers that turnouts are working in a dry environment. In reality, railway tracks are exposed to extreme conditions such as flooding, which could damage the power supply, signaling systems, rolling stocks and the infrastructure. The so-called phenomenon ‘washed out’ or ‘washed away’ ballast affects directly the dynamic behavior of rolling stock and can cause derailments with fatalities. In 2018, for instance, 25 people were killed in an accident in Turkey as a result of ‘washed away ballast.’ Few studies analyze unprecedented events in railway tracks in terms of vehicle-track interaction. However, no studies on turnouts was encountered in the literature. Hence, it is a significant contribution to analyze a railway turnout in case flooding occurs. In this study, the beam oriented finite element model, validated previously, is manipulated to analyze the dynamic behavior of a turnout under dry and wet conditions as well as washed away ballast scenarios. The outcomes of the study show that considering the effects of flooding on dynamic forces during operation and design phases could be a key to prevent undesired events.

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Acknowledgements

Authors gratefully acknowledge European Commission for H2020-MSCA-RISE Project No. 691135 “RISEN: Rail Infrastructure Systems Engineering Network” (www.risen2rail.eu) [32] and for partial support from H2020 Shift2Rail Project No 730849 (S-Code). Authors also highly appreciate the sponsorships and assistance from Ministry of National Education (Turkey), Network Rail, RSSB (Rail Safety and Standard Board, UK).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, School of Engineering, The University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B152TT, UK

    Mehmet Hamarat & Sakdirat Kaewunruen

  2. School of Metallurgy and Materials, The University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B152TT, UK

    Mayorkinos Papaelias

Authors
  1. Mehmet Hamarat
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  2. Mayorkinos Papaelias
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  3. Sakdirat Kaewunruen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mehmet Hamarat .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal, Karnataka, India

    Sreevalsa Kolathayar

  2. Ministry of Home Affairs Government of India, National Institute of Disaster Management, New Delhi, India

    Chandan Ghosh

  3. Department of Civil Engineering, Institute of Engineering (IoE), Tribhuvan University, Lalitpur, Nepal

    Basanta Raj Adhikari

  4. Disaster Preparedness, Mitigation and Management Program, Asian Institute of Technology, Khlong Luang, Pathum Thani, Thailand

    Indrajit Pal

  5. Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

    Arpita Mondal

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Hamarat, M., Papaelias, M., Kaewunruen, S. (2022). Vulnerability of Railway Switches and Crossings Exposed to Flooding Conditions. In: Kolathayar, S., Ghosh, C., Adhikari, B.R., Pal, I., Mondal, A. (eds) Resilient Infrastructure . Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering, vol 202. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6978-1_27

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6978-1_27

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-16-6977-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-16-6978-1

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

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