BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Phys.
Sec. Soft Matter Physics
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphy.2025.1623258
Study on the evolution mechanism of concrete properties under the coupled effects of freeze-thaw cycle, chloride salt and fatigue loading
Provisionally accepted
- 1School of Materials Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
- 2State Key Laboratory of Engineering Materials for Major Infrastructure, Southeast University., Nanjing, China
- 3Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Design and Manufacturing of Precision Medical Equipment, School of Mechanical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
- 4Joint Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education, Institude of Applied Physics and Materials Engineering, University of Macau, Avenida do Universidate, Taip, Macao, SAR China
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The long-term durability performance of ballastless track systems exhibits significant dependence on their in-service environmental conditions. In addition to cyclic fatigue loading from train operations, critical durability challenges arise from the coupled effects of freeze-thaw cycling and chloride ion penetration, particularly in coastal regions or cold climate zones. Conventional experimental studies predominantly focus on single or dual-factor acceleration tests and confined to macroscopic performance characterization. In this study, the coupling effect of freeze-thaw, chloride salt and loading on the microstructure evolution was systematically and quantitively investigated, with the role of each kind of environmental action analyzed, experimentally and quantitively evaluating the significantly greater damage by freeze-thaw and chloride salt erosion to concrete than that of fatigue load.
Keywords: Ballastless track, Freeze-thaw cycles, Chloride salt, Fatigue load, microstructure
Received: 05 May 2025; Accepted: 03 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yang, Zhang, Zhang, Dong, Xiang, Sun and Jiang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Jinyang Jiang, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
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