Rolling Contact Fatigue (RCF) has become the main reason for rail reprofiling work, usually executed in the form of grinding and for rail renewal. Numerous research activities and experiences made in track have helped to understand the phenomenon better. Several ways have been explored and found useful to reduce or eliminate the respective damage and its negative effects. Amongst others the European research project INNOTRACK has provided valuable insight in this subject. Some resulting documents describe strategies to help prolonging rail service life and reducing life cycle costs. The focus here is laid on two fields of specific interest: One is the appropriate selection of advanced rail steel grades and another one the elaboration of a suitable maintenance strategy. Careful review of the presented findings results in the conclusion that both ways are beneficial. However, only a thorough combination of these two topics may provide a maximum benefit, as a matter of fact a multiplication of the single effects can be expected compared to isolated applications, as is described in this paper.
Advanced rail steel grades and their appropriate maintenance - the key to combat RCF
2012
9 Seiten, 6 Bilder, 12 Quellen
Conference paper
English
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