Abstract
The life of rail in tunnel is very short compared with that out of the tunnel itself. A serious problem hereby is that acidic gas from steam locomotives creates a corrosive condition which attacks rail and develops cracks in rail joint areas.
To solve problems of rail joint failure due to corrosion, a fatigue test was conducted by dripping on the specimen some corrosive liquids-neutral tap water or tap water+H2SO4 (pH3.5 and 2.2). The results show that the endurance limit decreases rapidly with decreasing value of pH.
