Example - Example 1

Problem
A steel railway track is supported on timber sleepers which exert an equivalent load of 400lb./in. length of
rail per inch deflection from its unloaded position. For each
rail and .
If a point load of 10 tons acts on each rail, find the length of rail over which the sleepers are depressed
and themaximum Bending Stress in the rail.
Workings

Each rail can be considered to be an infinitely long beam for which the length over which the downward
deflection occurs is given by equation (2)

And the Maximum Bending Moment is given by:

And the maximum Stress is:

Solution

The length is
The maximum Bending Stress in the rail is