Railway superstructure components are subject to impact forces caused by irregularities in the rail and wheel or variations in the support stiffness. These imperfections lead to the premature and accelerated deterioration of the track and increase maintenance costs. Generally, to mitigate these dynamic loads, elastomeric rail pads are interposed between rails and sleepers. For each track section, the pad choice is made according to its stiffness, impact attenuation and cost. In this experimental study, eight types of rail pads were characterized using two procedures from EN 13146–3. The results revealed that the rail pad material and geometry affect the impact attenuation ability of the pad and the testing procedure affect the results. It was found that the preload applied is one of the parameters that most affects the impact attenuation value. Appling a preload of 50 kN during the impact attenuation test, which is suggested by the standard, affected this parameter by ranging from between ~2 and ~ 20, depending on the rail pad. Based on these results it is considered that EN 13146–3 should be updated.

铁路上层建筑部件会受到由钢轨和车轮的不规则性或支撑刚度变化引起的冲击力的影响。这些缺陷会导致轨道过早和加速老化，并增加维护成本。通常，为了减轻这些动态载荷，在轨道和轨枕之间插入了弹性轨道垫。对于每个轨道段，根据其刚度，冲击衰减和成本来选择垫块。在本实验研究中，使用EN 13146–3中的两种程序对八种类型的滑轨垫进行了表征。结果表明，导轨垫的材料和几何形状会影响垫的冲击衰减能力，而测试程序会影响结果。发现施加的预紧力是最影响冲击衰减值的参数之一。标准建议在冲击衰减测试期间施加50 kN的预载会影响此参数，范围在〜2到〜20之间，具体取决于导轨垫。根据这些结果，认为应更新EN 13146–3。