Assessing Possible Ways of Reusing Ethiopian Old Railway Ballast (Addis-awash Section)
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Date
2018-03
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Different studies show that production and installation of ballast had considerable cost during the construction of ballasted track. The main objective of this research was to find and identify effective techniques of recycling/processing Ethiopian old railway ballast to its valuable form. The capacity of the ballast to with stand traffic loads after thorough recycling process was studied.
During assessment, Physical and mechanical properties of the ballast were inspected and analyzed by using different site assessment and laboratory testing techniques related with different international standards. Result of most tests conducted on this ballast shows that the ballast produced from recycling is effectively reusable. Results of tests like density, abrasion and crushing resistance, absorption and impact value fulfills the requirements of good ballast while physical properties like elongation, flakiness and fouling content fails related with some standards. Depending on the site investigation considerable amount of ballast is available on the track line that can be reused. More than half of the ballast available on the track line is reusable by threating it with proper recycling method and blending material. Based on the results of the study conducted most portion of ballast of this track line is recyclable. The result of cost/benefit analysis also showed that reprocessing this ballast is economically feasible after blending with new ballast over the use of a totally new ballast.
Finally this study was resulted with ballast of Ethio–Djibouti old rail way line incorporates hugely recyclable economic asset that can be used for in situ maintenance and construction of new projects. It proved that processing and recycling this ballast can reduce cost of production of new ballast material for in situ track maintenance and new track projects by three fold. But the whole track system is currently deserving reservation, management and further study for rehabilitation and renewal.
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Keywords
Old Railway Ballast, Ballast Recycling, Ballast Characterization, Economic Evaluation