Modelling railway ballast with accurate grain shape representation using rigid blocks in PFC3D

The webinar introduces a workflow to digitize and simplify ballast stones, grain shape quantification systems, different contact treatment and breakage models and their application in PFC3D to simulate large scale shear box tests.

The shape of the individual stones in railway ballast has a significant impact on the mechanical behaviour of the track bed. Convex rigid blocks allow to model grains with good accuracy while maintaining reasonable computational demand.

Presented by:

Akos Orosz, PhD student,
IEP Research Program

Ákos Orosz is a PhD student in mechanical engineering with experience in numerical modelling and geomechanics.

He is currently working on the modelling crushed rock aggregates in a joint research program between the Department of Machine and Product Design and the Department of Structural Mechanics at Budapest University of Technology and Economics (Hungary), in collaboration with Itasca Consultants SAS and Itasca Consulting Group.