Numerical investigation of prestressed concrete sleepers reinforced with high-performance macro synthetic fibres

As modern railway tracks are exposed to heavier loads and higher operational speeds, the excessive cracking and premature failure of prestressed concrete sleepers are becoming more and more critical. Towards addressing these issues, this study focuses on the numerical integration of macro synthetic (polypropylene) fibres in prestressed concrete sleepers to improve the structural behaviours (i.e. residual capacity, cracking resistance & ductility) and assess the damage evolution. Moreover, the numerical investigation performed using Abaqus attempted to validate experimental results and optimised the sleeper design by partially reducing the number of prestressing wires. The analysis reveals good agreement with the experiment at critical cross-sections (i.e. rail seat & centre) and analytically allowed a ∼ 15 % reduction in prestressing steel reinforcement for the macro synthetic fibre reinforced concrete (MSFRC) sleeper. Accordingly, the optimised MSFRC sleeper performed adequately with minimum ultimate capacity reduction that meets the permissible specifications and future demands.