Permissible Additional Stress in Rail and Preventive Measures

There is little content on track–structure interaction in current manuals and standards. This paper suggests a method to compute permissible additional tensile and compressive stress in a continuously welded rail of a ballasted transit track due to track–bridge interaction. The method may be followed for other types of track, e.g., direct fixation fastener track. Thus, this paper provides a practical approach for calculation of additional rail stress limits for engineers practicing in the field of railway/bridge designs. The permissible additional tensile and compressive stress is suggested for a ballasted transit track on a bridge. Preventive measures are also discussed in the event of exceedance of permissible stress.