The railway sleeper is a crucial part of the train track, supporting the train's weight and transmitting it to the rail bed. This article categorizes sleepers by material, outlines their characteristics, and focuses on recent research on composite sleepers.
The first type of sleeper used in railways was the wooden sleeper, particularly the pine sleeper. Later, concrete sleepers emerged. However, on railway steel bridges, the inflexible nature of concrete sleepers makes them unsuitable, requiring the use of wooden sleepers. Despite their elasticity, wooden sleepers have a short lifespan and need frequent replacement. This has led to the exploration of a new type of sleeper - the composite sleeper - specifically designed for steel bridges. Recent research has produced various composite sleepers, such as FFU synthetic sleepers, polyurethane composite elastic sleepers, integral coated recycled rubber composite sleepers, and composite rubber elastic sleepers. This article compares the performance of wooden, concrete, and various composite sleepers.
