Behavior of High-Speed Railway Ballastless Track Slabs Using Reactive Powder Concrete Materials

AbstractThe precast ballastless track slab has been widely applied in the Chinese high-speed railway system. However, the current slabs, made of normal concrete (NC) materials and designed in a “plane” structural configuration, were found vulnerable to the train loads and temperature effects. This paper proposed an innovative slab type, which was made of an alternative reactive powder concrete (RPC) material and designed in a “frame” structural type. Four frame slabs with different cross section profiles were parametrically investigated, and the best configuration was proposed. The results demonstrated the proposed RPC slabs can well meet the requirements of the stiffness and strength. Compared with the NC plane slabs, the warping deformation of the RPC frame slabs were decreased as much as by 41.7% and 37.0%, respectively, under the −10°C temperature gradients and the combination of train and temperature effects. The simulated tensile stresses were within the corresponding RPC strength capacity. The crac...