Track-bridge interaction analysis considering longitudinal behavior of quick hardening track on railway bridge

Quick-hardening railway track has been developed to rapidly convert ballast track to slab track in order to improve its maintainability and ride comfort. Quick-hardening track on bridges is applied as segmented slabs to reduce the temperature constraint, and anchors at the centers of the segments securely couple the track to the bridge. For rapid construction, anchors are not installed at the early age of mortar casting. In this case, the tracks are resisted by only friction between track slab and bridge deck. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze friction behavior between the track and the bridge without anchors. In this study, track-bridge interaction analysis was performed considering conditions of with or without post-installed anchors, various friction coefficients, and early age of quick hardening mortar. The analysis results show that the frictional coefficient should be at least 0.3 to satisfy structural safety both before and after anchor installation.