This report describes a novel method to determine residual stresses in railroad rails. The method uses thermal annealing to relieve the internal stresses in rail slices while advanced techniques (Miore and Twyman/Green interferometry) are applied to measure the deformation of rail slices during a stress relief process which is accomplished by thermal annealing (heat treatment). The rail slices are approximately 1/4 inch thick. Two slices from the same general location on a rail are used in this method. One splice is cut in the transverse plane and another in a 45 degree oblique plane. The 3-D residual stresses are then reconstructed from the deformation measurements by applying basic assumptions and principles. In this report, the thermal annealing method was applied to five different rails to examine the effect of rail grinding on rail performance.
The residual stresses in rails produced by rolling cycles are studied experimentally by moire interferometry. The dissection technique is adopted for ...
Rail sectioning with subsequent neutron diffraction experiments has been used to assess residual stresses in the rails. In this study we present the r...
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United States Department of Transportation
[PDF-4.51 MB]
