Rail damage refers to various states that occur during the use of rails, such as breakage, cracks, and other conditions that affect and limit the performance of rail use. The issue of injury and damage has always been a prominent problem on railways, seriously affecting the safety of train operation.
What is longitudinal deformation of steel rails
1) Uneven welding joints of steel rails
Due to the differences in strength and hardness of the metal on the top surface of the rail after welding, as well as the excessive additional dynamic load on the track caused by the original unevenness of the joint, wear and deformation occur.
(2) Wave shaped wear of steel rails (periodic longitudinal deformation)
When the wheel and rail come into contact, a process of alternating adhesion and sliding occurs, and the surface friction force also changes in magnitude during this process, resulting in different amounts of wear and wave wear. Wave shaped wear is divided into ripples (wavelength 30-80mm), shortwave waves (wavelength 80-300mm), and longwave waves (wavelength 300-1000mm) according to the length of the wave.
Ripples often occur on straight lines, short wave waves often occur on the curved steel rails of railways, and long wave waves are usually caused by the operation of only a single type of vehicle on the line. On site, several wavelengths of waves often appear simultaneously at the same location on the steel rail.
The periodic longitudinal deformation caused by rail rolling process issues is called wave bending, with a wavelength of around 3000mm.
