Given the substantially increased demand for increased axle loads of heavy haul trains, there is an imperative need to develop sustainable track infrastructure. When subjected to heavy axle loading, ballast aggregates rapidly break down, compromising the particle friction and associated load bearing capacity. Therefore, understanding the deformation and degradation (breakage) of ballast subjected to various boundary and loading conditions is crucial for improved track design and performance monitoring. Ideally, field testing should be carried out in real-life tracks to avoid laboratory scale and boundary effects, but field tests are often expensive, time-consuming and may disrupt rail traffic, hence not always feasible. A prototype test facility that can simulate appropriate axle loading and boundary conditions for standard gauge heavy haul tracks is presented in this paper. In collaboration with more than a dozen Universities and Industry organisations, Australia's first and only National Facility for Heavy-haul Railroad Testing (NFHRT) has recently been constructed and is now fully operational. This new facility enables a real-size (1:1 scale) instrumented track section to be subjected to continuous cyclic loading simulated via two pairs of dynamic actuators in synchronized operation. The results of a typical test are presented in this paper including the measured track settlement and lateral deformation, transient vertical and lateral stresses, rail and sleeper accelerations, resilient modulus and breakage of ballast. The test results show that an average track settlement of about 14 mm and lateral displacements up to 9 mm are recorded after 500,000 load cycles. Subjected to a 25-tonne axle load, the maximum vertical stress measured at the sleeper-ballast interface is about 225 kPa and this attenuates with depth. The test results of this iconic facility are generally consistent with actual field measurements obtained in heavy-haul tracks located in the towns of Singleton and Bulli in the state of New South Wales, Australia.

考虑到对重型运输火车的轴载荷的大量增加的需求，迫切需要发展可持续的轨道基础设施。当承受沉重的车轴负荷时，压载骨料会迅速分解，从而损害颗粒的摩擦力和相关的承载能力。因此，了解压载物在各种边界和载荷条件下的变形和劣化（断裂）对于改进轨道设计和性能监控至关重要。理想情况下，应该在真实的轨道上进行现场测试，以避免实验室规模和边界影响，但是现场测试通常是昂贵，费时的，并且可能会干扰铁路运输，因此并不总是可行的。本文介绍了一种原型测试设备，该设备可以模拟标准轨距重载轨道的适当车轴负载和边界条件。通过与十几个大学和工业组织的合作，澳大利亚第一个也是唯一的国家重载铁路测试设施（NFHRT）现已建成，现已全面投入运营。这种新功能使实际尺寸（1：1比例）的仪表轨道部分能够承受同步运行中通过两对动态执行器模拟的连续循环载荷。本文介绍了典型测试的结果，包括测得的轨道沉降和侧向变形，瞬态垂直和侧向应力，钢轨和轨枕的加速度，弹性模量和道of的破坏。测试结果表明，在500,000次载荷循环后，平均轨道沉降约为14 mm，横向位移高达9 mm。在承受25吨车轴载荷的情况下，在轨枕-道ast界面处测得的最大垂直应力约为225 kPa，并且会随深度而衰减。该标志性设施的测试结果通常与在澳大利亚新南威尔士州辛格尔顿和布利镇的重载航迹上获得的实际现场测量结果一致。