Review of rail corrugation progress

Abstract

Rail corrugation leads to fierce vibration, strong noise and fatigue of vehicle and track, and discomfort for passengers. Severe corrugation may cause derailment accident. This paper briefly introduces the distribution of railway rail corrugation all over the world and its basic characteristics, and presents the rail corrugation characteristics and structure features of heavy haul track, high-speed railway, subway and urban mass rail in China. Then, it reviews the history of rail corrugation study, and focuses on the recent advances in the theoretical models to understand the formation mechanism of rail corrugation for the past 40 years. Finally, the paper discusses the drawbacks of these models, and the current adopted measures for curing rail corrugation in China. The outlook of rail corrugation study is provided.