Asphalt layers within railway tracks’ substructure

For both heavy cargo Rail lines and High-Speed Lines, the railway industry continues to develop railway track design technologies. Within the past years, using an asphalt layer as a part of the railway track became so common as a support layer, it helps to reduce noise and vibration levels, reduce the thickness of the cross-sectional layers, reduce the lifetime maintenance, and many other great advantages. This paper will discuss the application of asphalt layers in railways, functionality, application fields, and types of asphalted trackbeds. Design requirements and parameters of asphalt layers, the mix design, installation process, and international experiences will be mentioned. Asphalt layers can improve the overall performance of the trackbeds and their behavior under repeated stresses of trains, the effect of asphalt layers on stress and strain ratios will be briefly discussed.