A Study on Fatigue Crack Propagation of Rail Steel under Constant and Mixed Mode Variable Amplitude Loadings

Abstract

Recently, axle load, operating speed and traffic density on railroads have had a tendency to increase and thereby cause additional pressure applied on used track. These operating conditions frequently result in service failure due to wear caused by wheel-rail contact and fatigue damage under cyclic loading. Among rail defects, the transverse crack, which has been the most dangerous type of fatigue damages, is developed from the subsurface crack near the rail running face and grows perpendicular to the rail surface. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate systematically the growth behavior of transverse crack for rail steel under mixed mode. In this study, the fatigue crack growth behavior of the transverse crack in rail steel was experimentally investigated under mixed-mode variable amplitude loadings.