Mechanism and Application of a New Guard Rail for Improving the Stability of Small Radius Curve Tracks with Continuous Welded Rails

This paper studied an effect of a new guard rail on the stability of curve tracks with CWR, and revealed a mechanism of the new guard rail for improving the stability of small radius curve tracks with CWR, and also analyze the degree of the new guard rail for enlarging the pave range of small radius curve tracks with CWR. In order to achieve these, an improved load-deformation method for calculating the stability of tracks with continuous welded rails (CWR) is suggested and verified. The results indicate that the improved load-deformation method not only has the same accuracy as the improved unified formula in specification, but also has the same clear and simple characteristics as the original load-deformation method. The mechanism of the new guard rail for improving the stability of small radius curve tracks with CWR is that the CWR stability can be greatly improved by increasing the stiffness of the track framework under conditions of maintaining the same cross-sectional area of the rails. The CWR with the new guard rail can allow the minimum laying radius from 300 m down to 230 m, i.e. the current specification limit can be relaxed 23.3%. If combined with the roadbed strengthening measures, the new guard rail can allow the minimum laying radius from 300 m down to 140 m, i.e. the current specification limit can be further relaxed 53.3%.