A method is proposed herein for predicting the onset of thermal buckling in rails in such a way as to provide a means of avoiding this type of potentially devastating failure. The method consists of the development of a thermomechanical model of rail buckling, together with the construction of an on-the-fly experimental apparatus that is capable of concomitantly foretelling the onset of thermally induced rail buckling. As such, the combination of these two components is intended to provide a tool that can be employed as a means of determining when intervention is necessary in order to ensure that rails will not fail due to thermal buckling.
Preventing track buckling incidents (Figure 1) is important to the railroad industry. Track materials, rail steel, for example, experience thermal exp...
The objective of this research study was to develop performance characteristics or variables (e.g., ride quality, rutting, fatigue cracking, transvers...
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