INVESTIGATION AND MITIGATION OF DIFFERENTIAL MOVEMENT AT RAILWAY TRANSITIONS FOR US HIGH SPEED PASSENGER RAIL AND JOINT PASSENGER/FREIGHT CORRIDORS

As with most highway bridges, railway transitions experi-ence differential movements due to differences in track system stiffness, track damping characteristics, foundation type, ballast settlement from fouling and/or degradation, as well as fill and subgrade settlement. This differential movement is especially problematic for high speed rail infrastructure as the “bump ” at the transition is accentuated at high speeds. Identification of dif-ferent factors contributing towards this differential movement, as well as development of design and maintenance strategies to mit-igate the problem is imperative for the safe and economical op-eration of both freight and passenger rail networks. This pa-per presents the research framework and preliminary findings from a recently initiated research effort at the University of Illi-nois at Urbana-Champaign. Aimed at developing design and repair techniques to mitigate differential movement at railway transitions, this research project involves instrumentation, per-formance monitoring and numerical modeling of new and exist-ing track transitions