Extending service life of rails in the case of a rail head defect

Abstract

Rails are subjected to the processes of wear, corrosion and contact and bending fatigue during their lifecycle. As a result of these processes, various types of damage and defects are formed in rails. The residual life of rails depends on the size, position, and orientation of defects. Maximum permissible crack-size values are calculated in this paper using the finite element method. The crack plane orientation relative to the contact surface plane is analysed. The dependence of the stress intensity factor on the crack area is established. This allows continued use of defective rails and safe operation on low-activity railways.

Dynamic Stray Current Measuring Methods in Urban Areas

“…Many studies have been conducted on rail wear and defects, contact impact, and fatigue of rail materials, but most of them do not consider the effects of corrosion on rails (Xu et al, 2021;Ovchinnikov et al, 2021;Haladin et al, 2019). Conditions including sunlight, humidity, temperature, salt deposition affect corrosion (Xu et al, 2021), the change of temperature on rail surface, condensation of water from air and evaporation result in wet/dry cycle that also favours corrosion (Xu et al, 2021).…”

The maintenance of the railway superstructure and its influence on the track geometry of regional line

“…In relation to the standardized values of the prescribed parameters, the quality of the railway track repeatedly goes through phases of degradation and rehabilitation. Evaluation and analysis of data representing the degradation of railway track quality influence decisions on optimal intervals for determining the current state of the structure [6], estimates of residual life, determination of life cycle costs of the whole structure [7], [8], or its components [9], [10], [11] and to predict the appropriate time and format of quality rehabilitation. While defects occur in the initial phase of the life cycle (consequences of structural creep, insufficient load resistance, non-compliance with production or construction technology) with a decreasing risk, the risk of defects is approximately constant in the middle of the life.…”

Influence of railway induced vibrations on structures and humans in urban areas

“…In accordance with the velocities measured from the geophysical investigations for the profile "RP-3 Romanovce", using Eqs. ( 7), (8), and ( 9), the necessary elasticmechanical characteristics of the soil layers were computed for the analysis using finite elements, as listed in Table 1. The 2D and 3D FEM models were generated with this initial estimation of the elastic-mechanical characteristics of the soil layers computed using known velocities (previously obtained through special geophysical measurements), and the position and orientation of the layers in the considered profile "RP-3 Romanovce" (Figure 4).…”

“…Although vibrations caused by passing trains are not conceived as the major reason for inflicting structural damage on neighbouring buildings, additional damage caused by the vibrations have been observed in some old masonry structures [2,3]. Moreover, structures damaged by earthquake may suffer additional damage caused by the vibrations with the latest example of such a case being the earthquake in Zagreb, which occurred in March 2020 [4][5][6][7][8][9]. On the other hand, vibrations are often the reason for continuous anxiety and discomfort in the occupants of buildings located near railway lines.…”