Keywords: railway bridges, dynamics, track-bridge interaction, experiments, damping, model design.

Realistic vibration predictions of railway bridges during high-speed train crossings require reliable dynamic input parameters for the applied calculation model. In particular, the dynamic stiffness and damping properties of the ballast superstruc-ture for the mathematical consideration of the vertical track-bridge interaction sig-nificantly influence the generated calculation results. However, due to a striking scattering of model-related characteristic values available in literature, adequate and realistic consideration of the dynamic properties of the vertical track-bridge interaction in vibration predictions is associated with considerable uncertainties. This uncertainness illustrates the need to determine experimental-based and relia-ble characteristic values. For targeted and isolated research of dynamic characteris-tics of vertical track-bridge interaction, a unique large-scale test facility was devel-oped at the Institute of Structural Engineering at TU Wien, which replicates a sec-tion of ballast superstructure on a railway bridge on a scale of 1:1 and excited to vertical movements. This contribution presents substantial results and findings from the experiments, focussing on the determination of the ballast superstructure's dy-namic stiffness and damping values, which can further be implemented in practical applications for vibration calculations. In addition, the experiments are used to as-sess the currently applicable international and national standardised permissible structural accelerations for railway bridges during high-speed train crossings.

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