Investigation into the effect of railroad ballast fouling on the ballast movements and strain change using “SmartGrid”

Railroad ballast is a crucial component in maintaining the stability and longevity of railway tracks. The effectiveness of ballast is threatened by degradation due to settlement, spreading, and ballast fouling. Various solutions have been developed to address these issues, including the use of geogrids to strengthen the ballast layer and increase track stability. Geogrid offers several benefits, including decreased permanent settlement and reduced maintenance costs. Recent studies have focused on the use of wireless sensors to monitor ballast particle movement in geogrid-reinforced ballast layers. “SmartGrid” is a new intelligent sensor that utilizes a geogrid sheet and a series of sensor hubs to provide real-time, high accuracy measurements of ballast-geogrid interaction under train load. The detailed specification of SmartGrid is first described in this paper and followed by a discussion of a field application of SmartGrid for the first time to study the difference of the responses generated by the same train load passing through the different condition of ballast. The result shows that SmartGrid is capable of real-time recording acceleration, rotation, and strain change under train load in the field.