THE FIGHT AGAINST ROLL RAILING CONTACT FATIGUE

Continually rising operating demands have resulted in rail fatigue failure remaining a serious problem on almost every major railway in the world, despite many recent advances. One group of rail failures results from exhaustion of the rail material's inherent resistance to fatigue damage. It includes rail-running-surface-initiated rolling contact fatigue (RCF) defects, such as 'squat' and 'head check'. During the last two decades, RCF defects have been increasing, and become a major cause of rail failure on some European and Japanese railways. The International Union of Railways (UIC) has commissioned the Icon (Integrated Study of Rolling Contact Fatigue) project to address this problem. RCF is complex, and needs to be studied in terms of metallurgy, material behaviour, fatigue technology, stress analysis, fluid mechanics, tribology, and vehicle track dynamics. Icon focuses on developing and validating theoretical models aiming to evaluate potential solutions to the RCF problem quickly and efficiently. As a result, there will be tools and knowledge to support the development of improved rail design, materials, treatments, and track maintenance and usage. The Icon programme has seven basic tasks; when finished early in 2000, it will have cost only about 0.25% of the savings that it could achieve.

• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/07445326
• Corporate Authors:

  Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corporation

  345 Hudson Street
  New York, NY  United States  10014
• Authors:
  • Cannon, D F
• Publication Date: 1999-12

Language

• English

Media Info

• Features: References;
• Pagination: p. 27-8
• Serial:
  • International Railway Journal
  • Volume: 39
  • Issue Number: 12
  • Publisher: Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corporation
  • ISSN: 0744-5326

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Defects; Dynamics; Failure; Fatigue (Mechanics); International; Mathematical models; Metals; Organizations; Railroad tracks; Railroad transportation; Research projects; Rolling resistance; Structural analysis; Vehicles
• Geographic Terms: Europe; Japan
• ITRD Terms: 5238: Defect (tech); 5473: Dynamics; 8034: Europe; 5520: Failure; 5579: Fatigue (mater); 9034: International; 8053: Japan; 6473: Mathematical model; 4543: Metal; 9057: Organization (association); 1173: Rail bound transport; 8557: Research project; 5494: Rolling resistance; 5573: Stress analysis; 1255: Vehicle
• Subject Areas: Railroads; Research; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00782880
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Transport Research Laboratory
• Files: ITRD
• Created Date: Feb 7 2000 12:00AM