The average cyclic load of heavy-haul railway trains is generally larger than that of a conventional mixed passenger and freight railway. This load leads to more severe fatigue damage to structures, including the concrete in a tunnel invert. This study focuses on the fatigue damage of a tunnel invert under a cyclic load of 33 tonnes. The damage classifications for the tunnel inverts are given based on field investigations. With large-scale in-situ tests on the Zhang-Tang Heavy-Haul Railway Tunnel, the pressure–time distributions for the additional dynamic stresses on the surface of the track-bed for various classes of the surrounding rock are proposed. They were subsequently validated against numerical simulation using the ANSYS Workbench module. Fatigue damage of the tunnel invert is demonstrated using both numerical and monitoring methods. It has been observed that the damage to the tunnel invert becomes severe and extensive if the quality of the surrounding rock degrades. Damage zones develop first at the top of the invert and then expand to a deeper position, depending on the rock grade.
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. Experimental evaluation of accuracy of current practices in analysis a