Home

Search

Collections

Journals

About

Contact us

My IOPscience

Fatigue crack initiation life prediction of railroad

This article has been downloaded from IOPscience. Please scroll down to see the full text article. 2009 J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 181 012038 (http://iopscience.iop.org/1742-6596/181/1/012038) View the table of contents for this issue, or go to the journal homepage for more

Download details: IP Address: 117.206.87.181 The article was downloaded on 19/03/2011 at 10:08

Please note that terms and conditions apply.

7th International Conference on Modern Practice in Stress and Vibration Analysis IOP Publishing Journal of Physics: Conference Series 181 (2009) 012038 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/181/1/012038

Fatigue crack initiation life prediction of railroad

P Hosseini Tehrani 1, M Saket 2
1.Department of Railway Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Narmak,16846, Tehran, Iran

E-mail: hosseini_t@iust.ac.ir
2. Department of Railway Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Narmak,16846, Tehran, Iran

E-mail: M_Saket@rail.iust.ac.ir

Abstract. Study of multiaxial high-cycle fatigue initiation life prediction for railroad is done in this paper. Using ANSYS 11.0 software three dimensional elasto-plastic finite element model of rail/wheel contact is constructed and fine mesh technique in contact region is used to achieve both computational efficiency and accuracy. Stress analysis is performed and fatigue damage in railroad is evaluated numerically using multiaxial fatigue crack initiation model. Using the stress history during one loading cycle and fatigue damage model, the effects of vertical loading, material hardness material fatigue properties and wheel/rail contact situation on fatigue crack initiation life are investigated.

1. Introduction The recent evolution of railway systems in the world has evidenced the necessity of more efficient management and, at the same time, of developing new, more accurate, design approaches to reducing costs and increasing safety and reliability of railway systems. Among all the sub-systems and the components that are a part of a railway system, the wheel/rail interface is one of the most delicate, both as regards the performances of the train and as regards its safety. Through the wheel/rail interface, in fact, the dynamic and static loads pass from the rail to the wheel through a really small contact area, whose extension and geometry can vary during the in-service period. The behaviour of the wheel/rail interface is fundamental for being certain that adequate comfort, stability and safety is guarantied during the train trip. This consideration justifies the attention given to these components and the necessity to check the rail surface condition with periodic non-destructive controls [14]. However these inspections are

c 2009 IOP Publishing Ltd

7th International Conference on Modern Practice in Stress and Vibration Analysis IOP Publishing Journal of Physics: Conference Series 181 (2009) 012038 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/181/1/012038

expensive and should be, if possible, reduced. This is possible only if new design approaches are developed, able to predict the accurate evolution of the damage mechanisms and, consequently, to indicate the required frequency of non-destructive inspections. Indeed the problem is complex, due to the fact that damage of the wheel/rail interface depends on many factors and different mechanisms contribute to the deterioration of the contact surfaces. Wear, rolling contact fatigue and thermal fatigue are the most common types of damage due to the wheel/rail contact. All them are complex phenomena and only recently, thanks to the increased computational potentiality offered by modern computers and software, some successfully tentative of defining methods to understand how damage occurs and to predict its evolution have been developed. Nowadays, among all damage mechanisms, fatigue is one of the most frequent ones. Unlike the slow deterioration process of wear, fatigue causes abrupt fractures in wheel or the tread surface material loss. These failures may cause damage to rails, damage to train suspensions and, in rare cases, serious derailment of train. In order to accurately describe the stress state under contact condition, analytical solutions, such as the Hertz contact theory [5], are easy to use if the problems satisfy the assumptions in Hertz contact theory. However, some practical problems cannot meet the required assumptions in the Hertz contact theory. For example, this theory assumes that the contact area is small compared to body dimension and surface curvature. For the wheel/rail contact problem, when the contact area is near the wheel flange, the surface curvature is comparable with the contact area and thus the Hertz contact theory is not applicable. In order to overcome the limitations inherent in the analytical solution, numerical methods for contact analysis, such as finite element method and boundary element method, are widely used. [6] Use a 2D finite element model and a multiaxial fatigue model developed by [7, 8 and 9] for bearing rolling contact fatigue analysis. [10, 11] Use the Hertz contact theory to calculate the stress response and treat the multiaxial fatigue problem as a uniaxial fatigue problem. The principle stress/strain component in one direction is used for fatigue analysis. [12, 13] developed a semianalytical approach for stress calculation, which used 3D finite element analysis but applied the contact pressure based on Hertz theory. In this paper, a 3D finite element model for wheel/rail rolling contact analysis is developed. Fine meshing technique in contact region is used to achieve both computation efficiency and accuracy. A stress response of the numerical simulation of the wheel rolling motion is used for fatigue life prediction and the Von Mises criterion which is the most widely used criterion for multiaxial fatigue of material having ductile behaviour is considered. In order to consider the mean stress effects modified Goodman approach is used. The influences of several parameters are evaluated and several conclusions are drawn based on the present results. The method developed in the current study may be used for fatigue resistance design and inspection planning of railroad. 2. Loading of rails In order to construct an accurate numerical model of rail fatigue damage a brief understanding of rail loading is needed. Rails are subjected to primary and secondary loading components. The loading by the wheel is applied to the rail as bending stresses, axial stresses, and Hertzian pressure, from rolling contact. The bending stresses arise from the static axle load which is usually between 8 and 22.5 tonnes (for heavy haul in Australia up to 40 tonnes) and its dynamic magnification by a

7th International Conference on Modern Practice in Stress and Vibration Analysis IOP Publishing Journal of Physics: Conference Series 181 (2009) 012038 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/181/1/012038

moving train. The overall magnitude also depends on the up and down motion of the sleepers, i.e., on the quality of the grounding of the track. Usually, quite different types of vehicles with different axle loads are operated on one track. A contribution to the bending stresses comes also from the weight of the rails itself. Defects in the running surface of the rails such as joints, dips and twists and irregularities in the wheel such as flats and out-of-roundness may play a role as well. Axial stresses arise from structural irregularities of the track and from the acceleration and deceleration of the train during train start and stop. The loading due to rolling plays a major role in the early crack extension phase. Note, that there is additional loading in lateral direction especially in curved track sections and at switches and crossovers. These forces are also dynamically magnified with increasing speed. For trains equipped with tilting technology local track irregularities in particular in smallradius curves seem to play a major role with respect of lateral load increase in track and bogie as well [14]. Note that the main load case for rails in switches is lateral bending. The primary loads are superimposed by secondary loads, which, by their nature, are thermal and residual stresses. A rail track is installed at a certain ambient temperature, e.g. in springtime or autumn. Because built-in rails cannot elongate and shrink with increasing and decreasing temperatures, seasonal differences in the temperature will produce axial thermal stresses. These are tensile stresses at lower and compressive stresses at higher temperatures. Due to Boudnitski and Edel [15] most European rail failures occur at temperatures at or slightly above . At this temperature high tensile thermal stresses are combined with relatively low toughness values of the rail materials. Residual stresses in rails are introduced by different mechanisms. Primarily they stem from the manufacturing process, namely from heat treatment and roller straightening [16, 17]. Maximum axial tensile residual stresses of about 200 MPa have been measured in the vertical centre line of the rail below the running surface and in the rail foot whereas the other regions of the rail section are characterized by compressive residual stresses. The residual stresses due to the manufacturing process can be minimized within certain limits by optimizing manufacturing technology. There are differences in the residual stress distributions of naturally hard and head-hardened rails (see, e.g., [18]). Note, that the residual stress state at the ends of the rail bar stocks deviates from that at the central section which is due to differences in the straightening process which has to be realized by other methods than by roller straightening [19].

3. Crack types in rails Cracks may be induced at or below the surface. Surface cracks are initiated due to high traction forces at high speed rails and they will propagate under the influence of a lubricant in an inclined angle in the direction of the motion of the applied load for rails operated in one direction. Transverse branching may then lead to the complete fracture of the rail. Sub-surface cracks are reported to initiate beneath the rail. The location of crack initiation is about 1015 mm far from the side surface of the rail which is in contact with the wheel and 610 mm below the rail head [20, 21]. These cracks seem to propagate towards the rail surface and to behave like original surface cracks after penetration [22]. Subsurface-initiated failures are the types of failures which are focused on this paper. The final objective of this research is to find an optimized inspection and maintenance plan for the rails in order to reduce fatigue failures. 4. Finite Element Modelling of Wheel / Rail Contact In order to build a realistic model of wheel/rail contact problem a 3D elasto-plastic finite element model is needed. This model should be able to accurately calculate the 3D stress response in the

7th International Conference on Modern Practice in Stress and Vibration Analysis IOP Publishing Journal of Physics: Conference Series 181 (2009) 012038 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/181/1/012038

contact region as well as includes both material and geometric nonlinearity. It may be used to simulate large and complex wheel motions, such as rotation, sliding, hunting movement and even dynamic impact response. Finally, through Fine meshing techniques in contact region, the proposed model is made very efficient in computing and hardware requirements. All the finite element models in this task are built using the commercial software ANSYS 11. The general procedure is described as below. In order to have more accurate contact analysis, geometry profile of the rail head section and the wheel tread are very important. For this reason UIC601 section profile (for the rail) and passenger coach wheel profile is used [23, 24]. The rails length is a little more than the distance of two sleepers. Fixed boundary conditions (All DOF) are applied to the two area of cross section at the ends of the rail, used 2D Solid42, 3D Solid45 Element for modelling the wheel/rail volume and Target 170, Contact 175 contact element for modelling the Surface to Surface contact. Due to nonlinearity of contact analysis, the region need to be fine meshed. In this research, a fine mesh that average length is less than 2mm is used in near contact area. Using pilot node at the wheel centre, in this important place a pilot point is connected to the wheel using rigid link element. All the external loading and boundary conditions of the wheel load are applied on the pilot point. These loading and boundary condition can be obtained through field measurement or from numerical simulation of the track system motion analysis. On the possible contact area of the rail head and the wheel tread, contact elements (Target 170 for rail and Contact 175 for wheel) are used corresponding to the geometry mesh of the wheel. The contact algorithm is augmented lagrangian method. Friction effect is included into material property of the contact element and a Coulomb friction model is used. The coulomb friction coefficient is assumed to be 0.3. The material properties of the wheel and rail are considered to be bilinear kinematic hardening in ANSYS [25]. After that quasi- static analysis is performed and the results for each step are stored. Very fine mesh is applied to the contact area and some depth under contact surface to obtained accurate results. Results accuracy may be shown by comparison with experimental results.

Figure 1. Finite element modelling of wheel/rail contact.

A prevalent rail section that recommended by UIC (International Union of Railways or Union Internationale des Chemins de fer)

7th International Conference on Modern Practice in Stress and Vibration Analysis IOP Publishing Journal of Physics: Conference Series 181 (2009) 012038 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/181/1/012038

5. Numerical Example The rail profile is chosen according to UIC regulation, the considered rail is the most prevalent UIC60 profile that is shown in the UIC leaflet. The wheel diameter is about 0.89 m and, the wheel profile is chosen according to the AAR standard wide flange contour [26]. The vertical load is assumed to be the maximum design load, which is 146.2 kN. The material properties of the rail and wheel are assumed to be same and are as follow; Youngs modulus 205MPa, yielding strength 500MPa, friction coefficient 0.3 tangent modulus 4000MPa, and linear kinematics hardening model is used. In this task the rail length is considered to be 700 mm [25]. The initial contact point is assumed to occur at the railhead centre and wheel tread centre. The results of the static load analysis of the wheel and rail contact are shown in Figs. 2 and 3. Fig. 2 shows the Von Mises stresses from different section views. Fig. 3 shows in-plane shear stress. From the Fig. 2, it is seen that the maximum Von Mises occurs at some depth below the head surface. The stress decreases quickly as the depth increases. The high stress occurs within a small region of the contact location. It is seen that the maximum stress occurs about 5-10 mm below the head surface of the rail. This reign may be the sight of underneath crack nucleation. The numerical results predict closely the formation of crack sight similar to experimental results. The stress in the other parts of rail is nearly zero.This indicates that only a small portion of the motion simulation is needed because the stress far away from the contact location is zero. From Fig. 3, a butterfly pattern of the shear stress is observed. The maximum value also occurs at a depth of about 5-10 mm below the head surface, the maximum occur at the location some distance away from the contact location.

(a) wheel/rail contact

(b) Front section view

(C) Left section view

Figure 2. Von-Mises stress distribution of wheel/rail contact.(MPa)

Distribution of

Figure 3. In-plane shear stress distribution of wheel/rail contact.(MPa)

7th International Conference on Modern Practice in Stress and Vibration Analysis IOP Publishing Journal of Physics: Conference Series 181 (2009) 012038 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/181/1/012038

From Figs. 2 and 3, the stress pattern indicates multiple contact points between the wheel/rail interfaces. After obtaining the stress history of the wheel, the Von Mises method is used as the multiaxial fatigue criterion to calculate the fatigue initiation life. In order to consider the mean stress effects modified Goodman approach is used. For each step vertical load amplitude on rail assumed to be constant and varies between a maximum value and zero. As it is seen in fig. 5(a) in order to examine the effects of load amplitude for different steps the load amplitude varies among 50 kN and 150 kN. The point of maximum Von-Mises stress is considered as the critical location for fatigue crack initiation. The fatigue SN curve for uniaxial and torsional loading are plotted in Fig. 4. The fatigue damage distribution versus vertical load and hardness is plotted in Fig. 5. The damage accumulation rate on the wheel section under different vertical loads are calculated and plotted in Fig. 5(a). As expected, the damage accumulation rate increases as the vertical load increases. In this case, the equivalent stress amplitude is lower than the endurance limit for the vertical load below 105 kN. Fig. 5(b) shows that the damage accumulation rate increases as the hardness increases. This may be occurred as a result of decreasing the contact area between wheel and rail which causes higher stresses in contact area.

Figure 4. S-N curve for uniaxial and torsional loading.

(a) Hardness and Damage per cycle

6

(b)

Figure 5. (a) Relationship between vertical load and Damage per cycle, (b) Relationship between

7th International Conference on Modern Practice in Stress and Vibration Analysis IOP Publishing Journal of Physics: Conference Series 181 (2009) 012038 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/181/1/012038

Figure 6. Effects of lateral displacement of wheel on maximum stress occurrence in rail. Fig. 6 shows effects of lateral displacement of the wheel on maximum stress occurrence in rail. As it is seen when the contact area is shifted to the left (near the flange of the wheel) stresses in this area will rises dramatically. Besides it is seen that when the contact area is located at the slope change location of the wheel an increasing in stresses occurs. Therefore it is concluded that the worst area for wheel and rail contact is near to the flange of rail also it is better to translate the slope change area of the wheel near to the inside face of the wheel. 6. Conclusion A multiaxial fatigue life prediction investigation is developed in this paper. Unlike most of the previous studies, the current task is used a three dimensional model and a nonlinear finite element analysis is used for stress computation and the stress history is then used to calculate the fatigue life. The effect of several parameters, namely vertical loads, material hardness, fatigue strength and wheel/rail contact situation, on the fatigue damage in railroad is studied using the Von mises model. In the current study, the effects of different parameters have been studied individually. Future research needs to consider interactive effects of those parameters because the wheel/rail contact problem is highly nonlinear. Also, other effects, such as residual stress from manufacturing, brake loading, thermal loading, dynamic and impact loadings, material defects, etc. need to be included in the proposed methodology. 7. References [1] H. Sakamoto, K. Hirakawa, Bull. JSME Ser. A 46 (2003) 613619. [2] R. Lunden, Proceedings of the International Wheelset Congress, Sydney, 1992,pp. 163167. [3] D.F. Cannon, K.-O. Edel, S.L. Grassie, K. Sawley, Fatigue Fract. Eng. Mater. Struct.26 (2003) 865887. [4] O. Orringer, Crack propagation and fracture in contacting bodies, Fatigue Fract.Eng. Mater. Struct. 19 (1996) 13291338. [5] M.R. Ayatollahi, M. Zakeri, M.N. Hassani, Proceeding of the 11 International Conference Fracture (ICF11), Turin, Italy, 2005 [6] Liu Y, Mahadevan S. Multiaxial high-cycle fatigue criterion and life prediction for metals. Int J Fatigue 2005;7(7):790800.

7th International Conference on Modern Practice in Stress and Vibration Analysis IOP Publishing Journal of Physics: Conference Series 181 (2009) 012038 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/181/1/012038

[7] Howell M, Hahn GT, Rubin CA, McDowell DL. Finite element analysis of rolling contact for nonlinear kinematic hardening bearing steel. ASME J Tribol 1995;117:72936 [8] Guo YB, Barkey ME. Modeling of rolling contact fatigue for hard machined components with process-induced residual stress. Int J Fatigue2004;26(6):60513 [9] Fatemi A, Socie DF. multiaxial fatigue damage including out-of-phase loading. Fatigue Fract Eng Mater Struct1988;11:14965 [10] S raml M, Flasker J, Potrc I. Numerical procedure for predicting the rolling contact fatigue crack initiation. Int J Fatigue 2003;25(7):58595. [11] ASTM E 647-99. Standard test method for measurement of fatigue crack growth rates. Philadelphia: American Society for Testing and Materials; 1999. [12] Ringsberg JW. Life prediction of rolling contact fatigue crack initiation. Int J Fatigue 2001;23(7):57586. [13] Liu Y, Stratman B, Mahadevan S. Fatigue crack initiation life prediction of railroad wheels. Int J Fatigue 2006;28(7):74756 [14] Gasemyr H, Normann J. Beurteilung des Einflusses der Gleisqualitat in Gleisbogen mit kleinen Radien auf die Beanspruchung an Radsatzwellen der Drehgestelle fur Neigezuge am Beispiel eines durchgefuhrten Messprogramms in Norwegen. ZEVrail performance under high axle load conditions. In: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Contact Mechanics and Wear of Rail/Wheel systems (CM2003), Goteburg, Sweden; 2003. [15] Boudnitski G, Edel K-O. Spannungsintensitatsfactoren in Schienen. In: Proceedings of Internationales Symposium Schienenfehler, Brandenburg, Germany; 2000 [chapter 11]. [16] Schleinzer G, Fischer FD. Residual stresses in new rails. Mater Sci Engng 2000;A288:2803. [17] Schleinzer G, Fischer FD. Residual stress formation during the roller straightening of railway rails. Int J Mech Sci 2001;43:228195. [18] Cannon DF, Pradier H. Rail rolling contact fatigue. Research by the European Rail Research Institute. Wear 1996;191:113. [19] Edel K-O, Boudnitzki G, Schur EA. Literaturanalyse zum Thema Bruchmechanik und Eisenbahnschienen. Report FH, Brandenburg; 1997. [20] Clayton P. Tribological aspects of wheel/rail contact: Areview of recent experimental research. In: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference of Contact Mechanics and Wear of Rail/Wheel Systems, Vancouver; 1994. [21] prEN 13647-1. Railway applicationstrack. Standard draft submitted to CEN, 2001. [22] Orringer O, Morris JM, Jeong DY. Detail fracture growth in rails: Test results. Theor Appl Fract Mech 1986;5:6395 [23] AAR (Association of American Railroads). Manual of standards and recommended practices: section G-wheels and axles. Issue of 1998. [24] UIC (International Union of Railways) Leaflet 512-3. Technical specification for the supply of solid wheels in rolled non-alloy steel for tractive and trailing stock;also prEN 13262, Draft 1998.& other correlate leaflet(500 series leaflet). [25] Gupta V, Bastias P, Hahn GT, Rubin CA. Elasto-plastic finite elementanalysis of 2-D rolling plus sliding contact with temperature dependent bearing steel material properties. Wear 1993;169:2516. [26] Telliskivi T, Olofsson U, Sellgren U, Kruse P. A tool and a method for FE analysis of wheel and rail interaction. Ansys conference; 2000.