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Key Structural Conditions that can Compromise Concrete Crosstie Service Life (Room Sagamore 1)

Even though one of the primary reasons US railroads install concrete crossties in heavy haul lines is the expectation of longer life cycles compared with timber crossties, much improvement can be made in assessing the remaining life of these track components. It is nontrivial to accurately quantify the remaining life of concrete crossties installed in heavy haul track due a number of load-related factors and the highly variable field performance of crosstie designs to date. Nevertheless, providing adequate information to quantify the remaining service of concrete crossties is of great value for railroads to plan maintenance interventions and to strategize future track construction and upgrades. This paper focuses on identifying key factors that influence the concrete crosstie service life and provides the initial step to create a standard methodology to estimate the remaining capacity of in-service concrete crosstie. To determine these factors, a risk analysis of concrete crosstie failures based on laboratory experimentation results and field performance information was performed and is presented in this paper.