###### Abstract  
With the gradual increase of the cargo weight of heavy-haul trains, the traditional ballasted track with the accumulation of stone and ballast has been unable to meet its structural safety requirements. From the comparison of the three common ballastless tracks in China, it can be seen that the low-vibration track (LVT) has the advantages of reasonable structure, low cost, and easy maintenance. Therefore, the design and research of heavy-haul railways are focused on, and it is urgent to study the applicability of LVT in heavy-haul railways. **Method:** By improving the slope of the short side of the LVT support block, the support block has a better load bearing capacity, so as to achieve the purpose of bearing a larger axle load. Through 1:1 full-scale model test and finite element simulation, the static mechanical properties of Improved LVT (ILVT) and Traditional LVT (TLVT) are compared and analyzed. **Result:** Compared with TLVT, ILVT has smaller vertical displacement and track gauge changes when subjected to the same load. The proven and reliable finite element model also shows that ILVT's load sharing is less affected. In the case of achieving the same deformation, ILVT can withstand greater vertical and lateral loads. **Conclusions:** Compared with the TLVT, the ILVT design can reduce the vertical displacement of the rail and the supporting block, better control the track subsidence, and improve the driving safety of the LVT. At the same time, ILVT improves the anti-overturning ability of the rail and support block under lateral load, reduces the expansion of the gauge and the lateral spacing of the support block, and improves the stability of the track structure. ILVT can also be considered for the weight of 40t and other large axle load, and has broad application prospects. 1 School of Civil Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410075, China; [EMAIL_ADDRESS] (Z.Z. ); [EMAIL_ADDRESS] (G.P. ); [EMAIL_ADDRESS] (X.H. ); [EMAIL_ADDRESS] (W.W.); [EMAIL_ADDRESS] (J.H. ); [EMAIL_ADDRESS] (S.L. ); [EMAIL_ADDRESS] (A.A.S.) [EMAIL_ADDRESS]. Moreover, the length of newly-built heavy-haul railway tunnels is generally as long as 1-2 km, because the height of the carriages of heavy-haul trains has also increased a lot [6]. Therefore, if the heavy-haul railway continues to use the traditional ballasted track, it is necessary to build a tunnel with a larger space, which is not only difficult to construct, but also has a high safety risk [7]. At present, with the development of China's high-speed railways and urban subways, ballastless tracks have been successfully applied to train lines with low axle loads such as high-speed railway EMUs and subway trains [7], especially the emergence of various types of ballastless tracks with superior performance and the maturity of related technologies [8]. Whether the ballastless track can be applied to heavy-haul railways, which have a relatively large train load, has also become the frontier of the railway engineering research field, and many scientific research institutions have also conducted extensive research on it [9]. However, there is no engineering practice of heavy-haul railway ballastless track in the world. The ballastless track structures used in China mainly include double-block track (DBT), long sleeper buried track (LSBT) and low-vibration track (LVT) [10]. (1) DBT  
DBT (Figure 2) is mainly composed of steel rails, elastic fasteners, double-piece sleepers, etc. [11]. The sleepers are prefabricated by the factory. The sleepers are assembled into rail rows during construction, and the sleepers are poured into the reinforced concrete track bed by pouring concrete on site. The main advantages of the DBT structure are the following: strong structural integrity, simple construction technology, easy-to-master production technology for prefabricated sleepers, complete domestic production equipment and convenient transportation and lifting, better economy.