Estimation of the Transverse Crack Propagation of a Heat Treated Rail

抄録

Rail breakages due to transverse cracks originating from gauge corner cracks have been occurring in heat-treated rails. Railway Operators conduct periodic maintenance by replacing rails, through visual inspection and rail ultrasonic flaw detection. These measures represent a significant cost, creating the need for research on crack propagation. As part of this research, rail bending tests were carried out on rails which have been given artificially introduced cracks on the rail head, to investigate the transverse crack growth rate. In addition, a method was developed for estimating transverse crack growth using FEM. This method was verified by comparing estimated values with actual rail bending test results.