Feasibility of Magnesium Phosphate Cement (MPC) as a repair material for ballastless track slab

Ballastless tracks are becoming more popular with their lower overall lifecycle costs and increased lateral load capabilities but cracking due to cyclic vehicle loads and temperature loads have known to cause cracking which has become a major problem for this kind of construction. Based on the needs of the repair material, Magnesium Phosphate Cement has been studied in this paper as a possibility. A finite element model of a stretch of ballastless track slab has been developed to study the stress and strain properties of MPC repaired ballastless track under different temperature conditions. Results have then been compared to that for epoxy resin which is currently the industry standard for these kinds of repair. The analysis revealed that stress concentration occurred at the end of crack and that the smaller the magnitude of this stress concentration, the more obvious its effects were. The cracking resistance of MPC was found to be comparable to that of epoxy resin, though not better than epoxy resin. However, MPC was concluded to be more suitable than epoxy resin practically because of its superior compatibility with concrete, lower coefficient of linear expansion, better stability to temperature changes and lower setting times. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.