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Composites for Alternative Railway Sleepers

Chapter · January 2021

DOI: 10.1007/978-981-15-8079-6_26

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From the SelectedWorks of Wahid Ferdous

Summer December 3, 2019

Composites for alternative railway sleepers

Wahid Ferdous
Allan Manalo
Majid Muttashar
Peng Yu
Reddy Kakarla, et al.

Available at: https://works.bepress.com/wahid_ferdous/18/

 16th East Asia-Pacific Conference on Structural Engineering & Construction (EASEC16)
Edited by C.M. Wang, V. Dao and S. Kitipornchai
Brisbane, Australia, December 3-6, 2019

COMPOSITES FOR ALTERNATIVE RAILWAY SLEEPERS

W. FERDOUS1*, A. MANALO1, M. MUTTASHAR2, P. YU1, R. KAKARLA1, C.

SALIH1 and P. SCHUBEL1

1
University of Southern Queensland, Centre for Future Materials (CFM), Toowoomba, QLD 4350, Australia
2
Department of Civil Engineering, Engineering College, University of Thi-Qar, Thi Qar, Iraq
Emails: Wahid.Ferdous@usq.edu.au, Allan.Manalo@usq.edu.au, majid-alzaidi@utq.edu.iq, Peng.Yu@usq.edu.au,
Reddy.Kakarla@usq.edu.au, Choman.Salih@usq.edu.au and Peter.Schubel@usq.edu.au
*Corresponding author

Abstract. Approximately 200 million timber sleepers are currently being used in rail networks around
the world due to their availability, affordability and dependability. It is estimated that nearly 90 percent
of the existing timber sleepers will need replacement by 2030. Recently, increasing costs, declining
quality, hardwood timber scarcity and environmental sensitivity has challenged the continuing use of
timber sleepers in rail track. Consequently, the Australian rail industry is now looking an alternative
materials to replace existing timber sleepers and it is projected that in next five years they will move
from a traditional timber-based system (15 years lifespan) to that of an engineered composites system
(at least 50 years lifespan). This paper critically reviewed the recent development of composite sleepers,
identified the potential issues and provided guidelines to overcome the challenges.

Keywords: Alternative sleepers; Composite materials; Recent development; Future opportunities.

1. INTRODUCTION
Australia has the sixth largest rail network in the world and traditionally timber sleepers have
been used due to their low cost, availability, ease of handling and fittings, excellent resistance
to shocks and vibrations, and good electrical resistance. Recently, rising costs, declining
quality, hardwood timber scarcity and environmental sensitivity has challenged the continuing
use of timber sleepers in rail track. Currently 200 million timber sleepers are laid in Australian
rail networks that are worth over $1.3 billion per year. It is estimated that nearly 90 percent of
these existing timber sleepers will need replacement by 2030. Due to this, the Australian rail
industry is now looking alternative materials to replace existing timber sleepers.
Polymer composite sleeper technologies have emerged as a potential alternative to timber
sleepers. Different from steel and concrete, composite sleepers can be designed to mimic timber
behaviour (an essential requirement for timber track maintenance), are almost maintenance free,
and are more sustainable from an environmental perspective. Despite the many advantages of
composite sleepers, they have gained a very limited acceptance by rail industry to date. Polymer
sleepers manufactured from recycled plastic materials are low cost but they have limited
strength, stiffness and dynamic properties which in most cases, are incompatible with those of
timber. Moreover, the prohibitive cost of fibre containing polymer sleepers’ limit their
widespread application.
This paper provides an overview of recent developments of composite railway sleepers and
their limitations, and suggests a solution which overcomes the challenges inherent in their
 FERDOUS et al.

utilisation and acceptance. The outcome of this paper will benefit sleeper design engineers in
rail industry to understand the current challenges and possible solutions.

2. RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
Several composite sleeper technologies have been developed in different parts of the world,
mostly in last two decades. Depending on the reinforcement, these sleeper technologies can be
classified into three major categories (a) no or short fibre reinforced sleepers, (b) unidirectional
fibre reinforced sleepers and (c) multidirectional fibre reinforced sleepers.

2.1. No or Short Fibre Reinforced Sleepers

Sleepers that consist of recycled plastic (plastic bags, scrapped vehicle tyres, plastic coffee
cups, milk jugs, laundry detergent bottles etc.) or bitumen with fillers (sand, gravel, recycled
glass or short glass fibres < 20 mm) falls under the category. The load coming to the sleeper is
mainly carried by the polymer. While some of these technologies introduced short glass fibre
to increase the stiffness and/or resist crack, they do not have major reinforcing effect to improve
the structural performance required for heavy duty railway sleeper application. The high
demand for alternative sleeper materials has resulted in some railway maintenance companies
to adopt and trial the usage of these materials. As a sleeper material, no/short fibre sleepers
offer a range of benefits including the ease of drill and cut, good durability, consumption of
waste materials, reasonable price, and toughness. The notable sleepers in this category are
TieTek (Anne and Evans 2006; TieTek), Axion (Louie 2013; Axion-EcoTrax), IntegriCo
(Chow 2007; IntegriCo), I-Plas (Clifton 2009; PRS), Tufflex (Cromberge 2005; Tufflex),
Natural rubber (Pattamaprom et al. 2005; Dechojarassri 2005), Kunststof Lankhorst Product
(KLP) (KLP ; Lankhorst), Mixed Plastic Waste (MPW) (Graebe, Woidasky, and Fraunhofer
2010) and Wood-core (Wood-core) are shown in Figure 1.

TieTek Axion IntegriCo

I-Plas Tufflex Natural rubber

KLP MPW Wood core

Figure 1. No or short fibre reinforced recycled plastic sleepers (References given in the text)

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2.2. Unidirectional Fibre Reinforced Sleepers

In this category, the sleeper technologies are reinforced with long continuous glass fibre
reinforcement in the longitudinal direction and no or very short random fibre in the transverse
direction. The strength and stiffness in the longitudinal direction is primarily governed by long
glass fibre while it is dominated by polymer in the transverse direction. These sleepers are
primarily suitable for ballasted rail track where the stresses in sleepers are governed by flexural
loading. Although some of these sleepers have been installed in bridge applications but the
major concern is their limited shear capacity that makes them less than ideal where the sleepers
are subjected to high level of combined flexural and shear forces. Easy to drill and cut, good
durability, superior flexural strength and modulus of elasticity are the advantages of the sleeper
in this category. The FFU (Fibre-reinforced Foamed Urethane) synthetic sleeper (Takai, Sato,
and Sato 2006; Kaewunruen 2013; FFU) is classified in this sleeper category. The key features
of this material include its light weight, good resistance to water absorption, heat and corrosion,
its ease of drilling, and its more than 50 years of design life. FFU material has been used in
railway industry as plain-track sleepers, bridge transoms, and turnout bearers with a wide range
of sleeper height from 100 mm to 450 mm. This material has been installed (Figure 2) in more
than 1300 kms of track (approximately 2 million sleepers) with its main application in turnouts,
open steel girder structures and tunnels. Apart from Japan, Sekisui FFU components have been
installed in Germany, Austria, Taiwan, Netherland, USA and Australia. In 2010, the aged
timber sleepers at Hornsby, NSW, Australia was renewed using FFU alternative sleepers
(Kaewunruen, You, and Ishida 2017). Their applicability is also now investigated for a long
span rail bridge in Chongqing city, China (Liu, Yin, and Liu 2012).

(a) FFU sleepers in track (b) dust may produce in cutting and drilling

Figure 2. Unidirectional fibre reinforced sleeper (Koller 2015)

2.3. Multidirectional Fibre Reinforced Sleepers

Polymer sleepers have been developed with long reinforcement fibres in both longitudinal
and transverse directions and consequently both the flexural and shear behaviour are dominated
by fibres. The structural performance of this sleeper can be engineered through the adjustment
of the fibre reinforcements in each direction according to the specified performance
requirements. The sandwich polymer sleeper (Figure 3) (Van Erp and Mckay 2013; Manalo
and Aravinthan 2012) and the hybrid composite (Ferdous, Manalo, Khennane, et al. 2015)
sleeper wherein fibres are oriented in the two directions to resist flexural stresses as well as
shear forces falls under this category. The author published a series of research work towards
the development of this innovative composite sleeper technology (Ferdous and Manalo 2014;
Ferdous, Manalo, Van Erp, et al. 2015; Ferdous et al. 2016; Ferdous, Manalo, and Aravinthan

3
 FERDOUS et al.

2017a; Ferdous, Manalo, Aravinthan, et al. 2018; Ferdous, Manalo, Van Erp, et al. 2018;
Ferdous, Manalo, and Aravinthan 2017b).

(a) installation technique (b) drilling

(c) cross section of transom (bridge sleeper) (d) installation of transom

Figure 3. Multidirectional fibre reinforced sleepers (Ferdous, Manalo, Van Erp, et al. 2018;
Van Erp and Mckay 2013)

Table 1. Performance comparison of different fibre reinforced polymer sleepers

Performance measurement AREMA code Composite sleepers

Oak Soft- Glue No or Uni- Multi-
wood lam short directional directional
Density, kg/m3 1096 855 960 850-1150 740 1040-2000
Modulus of elasticity, GPa 8.4 7.4 12.0 1.5-1.8 8.1 5.0-8.0
Modulus of rupture, MPa 57.9 49.3 66.9 17.2-20.6 142 70-120
Shear strength, MPa 5 4 4 4 10 15-20
Rail seat compression, MPa 4.6 3 3.9 15.2-20.6 28 40
Screw withdrawal, kN 22.2 13.3 n/a 31.6-35.6 65 > 60

Table 1 compared the performance of different fibre composite sleeper technologies with
the traditional timber sleepers specified by American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-
of-Way Association (AREMA) standard. It can be seen that the modulus of elasticity and
modulus of rupture of no/short fibre composite sleepers are significantly lower than the
softwood sleepers. The unidirectional fibre reinforced sleeper can meet the performance

4
 FERDOUS et al.

requirements and the multidirectional one further improved the shear capacity. The negative
impression of heavy weight of prestressed concrete sleeper can be solved using composite
technology. However, there are few challenges of these sleepers that need to overcome before
their widespread applications.

3 OVERCOMING THE CHALLANGES

Composite sleeper technologies have emerged as an effective alternative for railway track
maintenance and renewal. However, there are barriers that still need to be overcome for their
increased acceptance and use. This section discusses the emerging issues on composite sleepers
and presents opportunities for overcoming these challenges.

3.1. Strength and Stiffness

The composite sleeper technologies have been developed to replace existing timber sleepers,
therefore, the strength and stiffness of composite sleepers are expected to be similar to timber.
Table 1 indicated that the strength and stiffness of no/short fibre sleepers (17.2-20.6 MPa and
1.5-1.8 GPa) are significantly lower than the softwood timber (49.3 MPa and 7.4 GPa). One
approach to improve the strength and stiffness of this type of sleeper is to reinforce them either
with long fibres or steel bars. However, the strength and stiffness of unidirectional and
multidirectional fibre sleepers are comparable to timber. The high shear strength of
multidirectional fibre sleepers makes them ideal for bridge application.

3.2. Drillability
The polymer sleeper should be designed in such a way so that can be drilled easily and
quickly, while it should possess high pull out resistance at the same time. A hardwood timber
sleeper has a screw-spike resistance of 40 kN (Chattree, Manoharan, and Satyanarayana ;
Kaewunruen 2013) and it requires approximately 10 seconds to drill using standard drilling
equipment. The drilling of no/short fibre sleeper (recycled plastic) could be easier than the other
available polymer sleepers, however, the loosening of a fastener over time could be an issue
due to the nature of plastic materials that cannot grip the screw firmly like concrete, especially
under dynamic loading conditions. The dust produced during cutting and drilling of
unidirectional fibre sleeper (Figure 2b) may require a protective dust mask which is
uncomfortable to the workers on site. The polymer concrete sleeper (Ferdous, Manalo, Van
Erp, et al. 2018) offers superior screw withdrawal resistance but it takes longer time to drill
comparing with the other two. To make the drilling faster, the materials at the rail seat region
of polymer sleeper could be modified. Moreover, the pre-drilling of railway sleepers on one or
two sides may reduce the on-site installation time.

3.3. Cost Issue

Van Erp and Mckay (Van Erp and Mckay 2013) indicated that the price of high fibre
containing composite sleeper technologies (unidirectional and multidirectional fibre sleeper) is
approximately 5 to 10 times higher than that of a standard timber sleeper. On the other hand,
the Recycled Technologies International (RTI) stated that the costs of no/short fibre reinforced
sleeper range from 85 to 105 USD per sleeper, a price not including installation which
represents a significant value and can range from 70 to 200 USD per sleeper (McConnell 2008).
However, the lower life cycle cost is anticipated to offset its high initial cost (IntegriCo ; Axion-
EcoTrax ; McConnell 2008) which to attract the attention of the rail industry, needs to be similar
to, or insignificantly higher than, that of traditional ones. Similarly, optimising the
manufacturing process and material usage would result in a more cost competitive sleeper.

5
 FERDOUS et al.

3.4. Design Guidelines

A complete design guideline for composite railway sleeper has not been established yet.
However, standard provisions containing specifications for alternative sleepers are provided by
the Queensland Rail (Gill, Woodgate, and Smith 2015) in Australia, and American Railway
Engineering and Maintenance-of-way Association (AREMA) in the USA (AREMA 2013).
International Organization for Standardisation (ISO) published material characterisation
guidelines for plastic railway sleepers in ISO 12856-1 document (ISO-12856-1 2014). In
Australia, currently the Rail Industry Safety and Standards Board (RISSB) is developing a new
Specification for Alternative Material Sleepers – Timber Replacement (Standard) (RISSB
2018). Once completed, this standard is expected to provide the performance-based
requirements to allow rail infrastructure managers (RIMS) to select appropriate alternative
material sleepers.

4 CONCLUSIONS
This paper presented a brief overview of the recent developments of composite railway
sleepers, their current challenges and some suggestions to overcome these challenges. The
following conclusions are drawn:
 Composite sleepers that are available in market contains no/short fibres, unidirectional
long fibres and multidirectional long fibres. Only high fibre containing sleepers can
mimic the structural behaviour of existing timber sleepers.
 The strength and stiffness of low fibre containing sleepers are significantly lower than
the standard timber sleepers. To overcome this limitation, it is recommended to
reinforce them either with fibres or steel bars.
 Introducing an alternative drillable material at rail-seat location or pre-drilling of
railway sleepers may overcome the challenges of on-site drilling.
 The lower life cycle cost of composite sleepers is anticipated to offset its high initial
cost. Further reduction of the cost can be achieved by optimising manufacturing process
and material usage.
 The existing specifications for composite sleepers are unable to provide complete design
guidelines. The upcoming specification (RISSB) is expected to provide the
performance-based requirements to select appropriate alternative material for sleepers.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This project is partly supported by the Cooperative Research Centres Projects (CRC-P57360
- CRC-P Round 3) grants.

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