Railway axles are designed for an infinite life with admissible stress levels which correspond to generous safety factors applied to full-scale fatigue properties of materials. Nevertheless, in order to keep an adequate safety level for a such long-lasting component (an axle can typically run for 3x 106 km) subjected to surface deterioration or corrosion, the design is complemented by 'damage tolerance' analyses, in which it is assumed that a flaw could grow under service loads, in order to define an appropriate inspection plan. The ultimate 'damage tolerance' design is to design an axle so that there is no need for periodic NDT inspections and the integrity inspections are only carried out at overhauls (the so called 'million mile axle'). The aim of this paper is to describe the application of this concept to the axle of a freight train comparing this new design concept with the traditional fatigue design.
Design review of railway axles: fatigue damage versus crack propagation
Konstruktionsüberprüfung von Eisenbahnachsen: Ermüdungsschädigung versus Rissausbreitung
2011
10 Seiten, 8 Bilder, 1 Tabelle, 19 Quellen
Conference paper
English
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