Title: Investigations on Fiber-Reinforced Rubcrete for Railway Sleepers

Author(s): Anand Raj, Praveen Nagarajan, and A P Shashikala

Publication: Structural Journal

Volume: 117

Issue: 5

Appears on pages(s): 109-120

Keywords: fiber-reinforced rubcrete sleepers; polypropylene fiberreinforced rubcrete; rubcrete; steel fiber-reinforced rubcrete

DOI: 10.14359/51724679

Date: 9/1/2020

Abstract:
Railway sleepers are one of the most critical components of the rail network. Impact resistance of railway sleepers is gaining prominence due to the demand to transport larger loads. Impact and toughness resistance of concrete can be enhanced by the addition of crumb rubber to concrete (rubcrete). Further, the presence of steel fibers and polypropylene fibers help in the mitigation of macro and microcracks, thereby increasing the strength characteristics of rubcrete. In this paper, fiber-reinforced rubcrete was used as a material for railway sleepers. The optimum percentage of rubber, steel fibers, and polypropylene fibers were experimentally determined for improving the impact resistance of concrete and were found out to be 15%, 0.75%, and 0.2%, respectively. Results presented in the paper include tests for rail seat static, center top and center bottom bending, and impact on scaled-down models of M 60 grade prestressed concrete railway sleepers made of six material variants, namely ordinary concrete, rubcrete, steel fiber-reinforced concrete, polypropylene fiber-reinforced concrete, steel fiber-reinforced rubcrete, and polypropylene fiber-reinforced rubcrete. The results indicate that steel fiber-reinforced rubcrete sleeper models perform at par with the reference sleeper model when subjected to rail seat static loads and bending loads and behaves twice as better when subjected to impact loads.