철침목의 기술동향

Technical Trends of Steel Sleepers

Variety of recent railroad markets arouses the need for steel sleepers. Steel sleepers have many advantages over conventional timber or PC sleepers with respect to safety, environment and economical efficiency due to less effort for maintenance. Weak points of timber sleepers are to cut trees and apply toxic creosote as well as to need frequent maintenances while it is difficult to apply PC sleepers to steel bridge or crossing and to recycle them completely. In this paper, technical trends are analyzed in order to develop suitable steel sleepers for domestic railroads.