United States Department of Transportation
i
Effect of Wheel/Rail Loads on Concrete Tie Stresses and Rail Rollover.
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2011-09-21
[PDF-1.18 MB]
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Abstract:As a result of vertical and lateral wheel/rail forces, high contact stresses can develop at the interface between the rail base and tie. Under certain conditions, these stresses can exceed the strength of the concrete tie and result in deterioration of the tie and ultimately derailment due to rail rollover. This failure mode has been determined to be the probable cause of at least two derailments where the ties were found to have a triangular wear pattern. Following these derailments, a field investigation revealed this pattern of failure present in an appreciable portion of concrete ties. Closed-form analyses have been conducted to examine combinations of wheel/rail loads and contact conditions that produce concrete tie rail seat deterioration and rail rollover. These results indicate that under certain circumstances truck side L/V permitted by the FRA VTI Safety Criteria can result in stresses above the design yield stress of the concrete ties. These critical loads will provide the technical basis for redesigning the tie structure. Furthermore the analysis indicated that under certain circumstances truck side L/V permitted by the FRA VTI Safety Criteria can result in rail rollover. The analyses show that rail rollover can be a problem for new concrete ties, but is more of a problem in the presence of rail seat deterioration described above.
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