Pre-cracking development of weld-induced squats due to plastic deformation: Five-year field monitoring and numerical analysis

Weld-induced squats are a major damage type in high-speed railways as well as in conventional railways. They incur high maintenance costs and endanger operational safety. This paper first presents and analyzes five-year continual field monitoring observations and measurements of squats at rail welds. A hypothesis of the formation and development...

Investigation of the formation of corrugation-induced rail squats based on extensive field monitoring

Rail squats originate from a number of sources, such as corrugations, indentations and welds. A five-year continual field monitoring study was performed on squats induced by corrugations. This study indicated that a small black depression formed at the corrugation under wheel-rail dynamic forces, and then, a primary crack typically initiated...

Residual fatigue life evaluation of rail at squats seeds using 3D explicit finite element analysis

A modeling procedure to predict the residual fatigue life of rail at squats seeds is developed in this article. Two models are involved: a 3D explicit Finite Element (FE) model to compute the stress and strain at squats in rail, and the J-S fatigue damage model to determine the residual fatigue life on the basis of the computed stress and strain...