Static Behavior of Asphalt Concrete Track Considering the Temperature Effect

초록

Most of railway in Korea is built with ballasted track. The ballasted track, however, needs continuous maintenance though its construction cost is lower than that of other track system. To solve this problem, concrete track system has been adopted for some section of Gyungbu 2nd and Honam high-speed railway lines in South Korea. While concrete track system has a certain advantage over a number of maintenance issues frequently found in the conventional ballast track, it also has its own disadvantages such as high initial construction cost, difficulty in carrying out repairs on settlement and cracking, and noise and unwanted vibration. In this regard, the asphalt concrete track system can be viable alternative to ballast and concrete track systems. This system has advantages such as reduction of noise and vibration, relatively easy maintenance, and ready availability for public use at 50℃ after construction. The mechanical properties of the asphalt concrete are well known to be highly influenced by temperature. Relevant researches show that the load-distribution effect of asphalt concrete may be dependent on temperature. Reminding that the load-distribution effect becomes pronounced with increasing normal stresses on roadbed and tensile stresses under asphalt concrete pavement, real-sized train load tests on the asphalt concrete track (with wider sleepers) developed in KRRI with the variable of temperature were conducted. The effect of the temperature on the performance of the asphalt track were presented.