Fatigue life evaluation of continuous welded rails on concrete slab track in Korea high-speed railway

Abstract

There is a rapidly increasing demand for continuous welded rails. Continuous welded rails provide a more suitable installation on concrete slab tracks and more rapid and smooth movement and reduce overall maintenance cost. During the relatively short period in which concrete slab tracks have been used in Korea, there has been no documented case of rail fracture caused by repeated loading. This makes the evaluation of rail fatigue life using field data more difficult. In this study, the rail bending stress developed during high-speed train operation is obtained through analysis of vehicle–track interaction, and the correlation is analyzed by performing multiple regression analysis on train speed and rail surface irregularities. Equations for predicting the rail bending stress with regard to train speed and rail surface irregularity were derived. The effects of vehicle speed, track support stiffness, and fracture probability on the fatigue life of continuous welded rails on a concrete slab track in Korea high-speed railway were analyzed.