Study on Assessment of Ballast Condition Using Tracking Loading Vehicle and Ground Penetrating Radar

Abstract

Investigation and assessment of track components can improve the safety of running vehicles, but there are no mature methods of ballast condition testing. In combination of testing and correlation analysis, testing and assessment of ballast condition based on TLV (Tracking Loading Vehicle) and GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar) is introduced in this paper. Investigation was done on Jing-Guang line between XinYang and HengDian using TLV and GPR, and correlation between track stiffness and track irregularity was analyzed. The result shows: track stiffness is significantly correlated with track vertical profile, the average value and standard deviation track vertical profile is relatively smaller when track stiffness is between 60kN/mm and 160kN/mm. For different section of ballast cleaning date, the average value of track stiffness becomes bigger with the tonnage increasing, and the percentage of higher and lower track stiffness increases.