Modelling Uneven Support at Railway Crossings using a Vehicle-track Coupling System

A vertical vehicle-track coupling system, including the irregularity due to an acute crossing and a non-linear model, to describe the uneven support is presented. The track system is modelled as a finite length beam resting on a triple layer discrete viscous-elastic foundation. The vehicle is represented by a half car body and a single bogie. An iterative scheme is developed to solve the problem. The influence of the travelling speed, the number of hanging sleepers and the void gap size is investigated. Finally, the results are further related to the degradation of the ballast layer for the specific conditions simulated.