ENHANCING RAILWAY TRACK RELIABILITY AT THE JOINT AREA

Abstract

Currently, in the Russian Federation, increasing the carrying capacity of railway lines is a critical issue. Consequently, the number of higher-mass trains and freight density are steadily increasing. This growth inevitably leads to defects and failures of rails, both in the mid-span and at the ends of continuous welded rails (CWR). If a defect occurs in the mid-span of a CWR section, a temporary rail repair site must be established at that location. Furthermore, one of the most hazardous rail failures is fracture at the bolted joints, due to the difficulty in timely detection by flaw detection trolleys. A particularly high incidence of these fractures is observed on the Eastern Operating Domain, where a consistently high rate of acutely defective bolted rails are removed according to pattern 53.1. This article examines a promising solution for enhancing reliability in the bolted rail joint area through the application of a novel joint bar (fishplate) design. A mathematical modeling investigation of the stress-strain state around the bolt hole at the rail end was conducted, comparing two different joint configurations. Subsequently, verification strain gauge testing of the rail web and joint bolts was performed, confirming the accuracy of the developed mathematical model.