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Higher commercial speeds and more traffic on new rail lines accelerate deterioration of
infrastructures. Although
the ballasted track system
has changed little since the
advent of rail transport, it
is still not well understood,
and there is an urgent need
to step up research into its
behaviour. “We still do not
have the complete model
we need to establish the
laws of deterioration that
would allow us to predict
failures,” admits deputy
research director Louis-Marie Cléon. This model
must cover the complete
system because the track
components interact.
Dynavoie was an early
attempt at global
modelling, but one limited
by its assumption that all
the objects modelled are
continuous, which is true
of the subgrade but not of
the subballast or ballast.
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