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Railway transition zones (RTZs) experience higher rates of degradationcompared to open tracks, which leads to increased maintenance costs and reducedvailability. Despite existing literature on railway track assessment andmaintenance, effective design solutions for RTZs are still limited. Therefore,a robust design criterion is required to develop effective solutions. Thispaper presents a two-step approach for formulation of a design criterion todelay the onset of processes leading to uneven track geometry due to operationdriven permanent deformations in RTZs. Firstly, a systematic analysis of eachtrack component in a RTZ is performed by examining spatial and temporalvariations in kinematic responses, stresses and energies. Secondly, the studyproposes an energy-based criterion to be assessed using a model with linearelastic material behavior, and states that an amplification in the total strainenergy in the proximity of the transition interface is an indicator ofincreased (and thus non-uniform) degradation in RTZs compared to the opentracks. The correlation between the total strain energy (assessed in the modelwith linear material behaviour) and the permanent irreversible deformations isdemonstrated using a model with non-linear elastoplastic material behavior ofthe ballast layer. In the end, it is claimed that minimising the magnitude oftotal strain energy will lead to reduced degradation and a uniform distributionof total strain energy in each trackbed layer along the longitudinal directionof the track will ensure uniformity in the track geometry.

Design of railway transition zones: a novel energy-based criterion