Do Undercutting Cleaning – Be on the Right Track to Economic Success!
(Room Sagamore 7)
19 Sep 17
9:00 AM
-
9:30 AM
Tracks:
AREMA Student Program, AREMA Technical Sessions- Maintenance
Ballast is the load-distributing link between the track skeleton and the subgrade. Subjected to enormous stresses, ballast often becomes the weakest link in the chain of track components. Interacting with the subgrade, it considerably affects the service life of the entire track system which makes it a cost driver. Over time, both composition and characteristics of the ballast bed change due to mechanical stresses, weather influences or external fine particles. These changes may have different causes, their negative effects, however, are almost the same. The early detection of ballast fouling allows planning undercutting and prevents durable damage to the remaining track components. Numerous methods can be applied to detect ballast fouling. Many of them involve considerable efforts. This paper provides an overview on the diverse methods and shows how innovative track geometry analysis contributes to the reproducible detection of possible trouble spots at an early stage. This kind of preselection makes it easier to inspect certain track sections in detail, reduces costs and enables monitoring entire networks. Undercutting cleaning enables durable quality increases in the identified spots. Today, undercutting cleaning systems must meet diverse requirements. This has led to numerous designs. In an attempt to provide an overview, different fields of application are shown and simple economic models are used to assess the economic benefits of undercutting cleaning. Selected, international examples provide the data required for the calculation.