• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.1037-1043
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• 2007

The railroad systems with the ballast tracks have been widely used for a long time. But recently, the use of the slab track is being increased gradually with a technical developments. So, this paper deals with the appliance of the slab tracks on the railroad bridges. Firstly, review the design criteria of the railroad bridges related to the slab tracks for the stability and serviceability, based on DIN and EURO code. Then, perform the analysis of the railroad prestressed concrete bridges, and check whether the results of the analysis satisfy the design criteria. Finally, find the construction condition of bridges that all the design criteria are satisfied. As a result, to maintain the stability and serviceability of the bridges, bridges must have some restrictions, including a time of installation of the slab tracks. So, the construction schedule for the erection of the bridges will be carefully considered in case of the concrete railroad bridges with the slab tracks.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 1995.04a
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• pp.73-81
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• 1995

In Korea, the pilot construction of the first high-speed railroad on the Seoul-Pusan has already started 2 years ago. In the thesis, an attempt is made to develop reliability-based integrity-assessment models for the computer-aided control and maintenance of high-speed railroad bridges. The strength limit state models for PC railroad bridges encompass the bending and shear strengths as well as the strength interaction equations which simultaneously take into the element and system reliablities of the proposed limit states and reliability models. Then, the actual load carrying capacity and the realistic safety of bridges are evaluated using the system reliability-based equivalent strength, and the results are compared with those of the element reliability-based or conventional methods. Various parametric studies are performed for the proposed reliability-based safety and integrity-assessment models using the actual PC box girder bridges used in the pilot construction. And the sensitivity analyses are performed for the basic random variables included in strength limit state models. It is concluded that proposed models may be practically applied for the rational assessment of safety and integrity of high speed railroad bridges.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.549-562
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• 2017

The US railroad network carries 40% of the nation's total freight. Railroad bridges are the most critical part of the network infrastructure and, therefore, must be properly maintained for the operational safety. Railroad managers inspect bridges by measuring displacements under train crossing events to assess their structural condition and prioritize bridge management and safety decisions accordingly. The displacement of a railroad bridge under train crossings is one parameter of interest to railroad bridge owners, as it quantifies a bridge's ability to perform safely and addresses its serviceability. Railroad bridges with poor track conditions will have amplified displacements under heavy loads due to impacts between the wheels and rail joints. Under these circumstances, vehicle-track-bridge interactions could cause excessive bridge displacements, and hence, unsafe train crossings. If displacements during train crossings could be measured objectively, owners could repair or replace less safe bridges first. However, data on bridge displacements is difficult to collect in the field as a fixed point of reference is required for measurement. Accelerations can be used to estimate dynamic displacements, but to date, the pseudo-static displacements cannot be measured using reference-free sensors. This study proposes a method to estimate total transverse displacements of a railroad bridge under live train loads using acceleration and tilt data at the top of the exterior pile bent of a standard timber trestle, where train derailment due to excessive lateral movement is the main concern. Researchers used real bridge transverse displacement data under train traffic from varying bridge serviceability levels. This study explores the design of a new bridge deck-pier experimental model that simulates the vibrations of railroad bridges under traffic using a shake table for the input of train crossing data collected from the field into a laboratory model of a standard timber railroad pile bent. Reference-free sensors measured both the inclination angle and accelerations of the pile cap. Various readings are used to estimate the total displacements of the bridge using data filtering. The estimated displacements are then compared to the true responses of the model measured with displacement sensors. An average peak error of 10% and a root mean square error average of 5% resulted, concluding that this method can cost-effectively measure the total displacement of railroad bridges without a fixed reference.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.1158-1164
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• 2007

Recently, the demand on the practical application of life-cycle cost effectiveness for design and rehabilitation of civil infrastructure is rapidly growing unprecedentedly in civil engineering practice. Accordingly, it is expected that the life-cycle cost in the 21st century will become a new paradigm for all engineering decision problems in practice. However, in spite of impressive progress in the researches on the LCC, so far, most researches in Koreahave only focused on roadway bridges, which are not applicable to railway bridges. Thus, this paper presents the formulation models and methods for uncertainty-based LCCA for railroad bridges consideringboth objective statistical data available in the agency database of railroad bridges management and subjective data obtained form interviews with experts of the railway agency, which are used to anew uncertainty-based expected maintenance/repair costs including lifetime indirect costs. For reliable assessment of the life-cycle maintenance/repair costs, statistical analysis considering maintenance history data and survey data including the subjective judgments of railway experts on maintenance/management of railroad bridges, are performed to categorize critical maintenance items and associated expected costs and uncertainty-based deterioration models are developed. Finally, the formulation for simulation-based LCC analysis of railway bridges with uncertainty-based deterioration models are applied to the design-decision problem, which is to select an optimal bridge type having minimum Life-Cycle cost among various railway bridges types such as steel plate girder bridge, and prestressed concrete girder bridge in the basic design phase.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2006.11b
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• pp.530-537
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• 2006

Recently, the railroad route plan is trying to minimize the damage of the local resident which is caused by railroad construction. For this reason, reducing the banking height of soil roadbed, lowering the bridge girder height of a solid intersection and a part of cross river, the through bridge type which can achieve a required span length must apply. The representative through bridges of railroad are arch bridges, truss bridges and plate girder bridges, the through plate girder bridge of variable section can apply that the span length of these bridges is about $30{\sim}50m$, namely, middle span length bridge types, and that can satisfy structural capacity and beauty of railroad at the same time. This paper introduces plan and design process of the Su-eo cheon bridge applied by a through plate girder bridge type of the Jinju-Gwangyang double track 6th construction ordered at Korea Rail network Authority in 2005.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
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• v.9 no.2 s.33
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• pp.244-249
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• 2006

Recently, the SCP(Steel Confined Prestressed concrete) composite girders are developed to improve the characteristic such as displacement, vibration, and heavy dead load due to influence of self weight, and inefficiency of steel section of exiting girder-type railroad bridges. It is needed to verify the economical effciency of newly developed SCP composite girder bridge compared with the conventional girder-type bridges. In this paper, LCC analysis for alternative railroad bridges Is performed and its technique based on level of risk(probability of failure) is suggested. From the results, it may be stated that SCP composite girder bridge is more economical than a conventional one.

• Computational Structural Engineering
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.133-143
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• 1997

In Korea, the construction of the first high-speed railroad on the Seoul-Pusan Corridor has already started 3 years ago, in the paper, an attempt is made to develop reliability-based safety and capacity evaluation models for the computer-aided maintenance of the high-speed railroad bridges. The strength limit state models of PC railroad bridges for reliability analysis encompass both the single failure mode such as bending or shear strength and the combined interaction equations which simultaneously take into account flexures, shear and torsion. Then, the actual load carrying capacity and the realistic safety of bridges are evaluated using the system reliability-based equivalent strength, and the results are compared with those of the element reliability based or conventional methods. It is concluded that the proposed models may be appropriately applied in practice for the realistic assessment of safety and capacity of high-speed railroad bridges.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.574-580
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• 2005

Recently, the number of bridges and tunnels in railway is increasing due to the super high-speedy of train. Also, because of successively accidents of civil structures such as bridges and dams, the importance of maintenance become influential. The purpose of this study is to show the probabilistic life cycle cost analysis technique(PLCC) of the railroad bridge as pubic-infrastructures, and reasonably to indicate the economy in life cycle cost(LCC) through a case study. Rationally for life cycle cost analysis, the data gathered through many materials considered the uncertainty such as covariance. As a result, it is indicated that prestressed concrete bridge is pretty more cost-effective during life-cycle than preflex as well as steel box bridge. In future, if the construction of database and maintenance materials for railroad infrastructure is actualized, the life cycle cost analysis for railroad can be conducted easily and practically.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.683-698
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• 2015

Railroad bridges form an integral part of railway infrastructure throughout the world. To accommodate increased axel loads, train speeds, and greater volumes of freight traffic, in the presence of changing structural conditions, the load carrying capacity and serviceability of existing bridges must be assessed. One way is through system identification of in-service railroad bridges. To dates, numerous researchers have reported system identification studies with a large portion of their applications being highway bridges. Moreover, most of those models are calibrated at global level, while only a few studies applications have used globally and locally calibrated model. To reach the global and local calibration, both ambient vibration tests and controlled tests need to be performed. Thus, an approach for system identification of a railroad bridge that can be used to assess the bridge in global and local sense is needed. This study presents system identification of a railroad bridge using free vibration data. Wireless smart sensors are employed and provided a portable way to collect data that is then used to determine bridge frequencies and mode shapes. Subsequently, a calibrated finite element model of the bridge provides global and local information of the bridge. The ability of the model to simulate local responses is validated by comparing predicted and measured strain in one of the diagonal members of the truss. This research demonstrates the potential of using measured field data to perform model calibration in a simple and practical manner that will lead to better understanding the state of railroad bridges.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.225-236
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• 2017

Railroad bridges in North America are an integral but aging part of the railroad network and are typically only monitored using visual inspections. When quantitative information is required for assessment, railroads often monitor bridges using accelerometers. However without a sensor to directly measure displacements, it is difficult to interpret these results as they relate to bridge performance. Digital Image Correlation (DIC) is a non-contact sensor technology capable of directly measuring the displacement of any visible bridge component. In this research, a railroad bridge was monitored under load using DIC and accelerometers. DIC measurements are directly compared to serviceability limits and it is observed that the bridge is compliant. The accelerometer data is also used to calculate displacements which are compared to the DIC measurements to assess the accuracy of the accelerometer measurements. These measurements compared well for zero-mean lateral data, providing measurement redundancy and validation. The lateral displacements from both the accelerometers and DIC at the supports were then used to determine the source of lateral displacements within the support system.