USA Banner

Official US Government Icon

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure Site Icon

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

U.S. Department of Transportation U.S. Department of Transportation Icon United States Department of Transportation United States Department of Transportation

Technical Reports

Subscribe to Technical Reports

Improvement in Magnetic Techniques for Rail Inspection

Current inspection of rail for internal defects is carried out by ultrasonic and/or magnetic techniques. This report covers work directed toward advancing present-day magnetic technique for inspecting rail for internal flaws. The major emphasis was placed on improving the speed and detectability of...

Hopper vs. Tank Car Truck Loads

This report describes the results of tests conducted at the Transportation Test Center (TTC) in Pueblo, Colorado to ascertain differences between the ride characteristics of a hopper car with D-5 and D-3 springs and those of a tank car with D-3 springs. Testing involved operating speeds of 10 to 60...

Fundamental Studies Related to Wheel/Rail Contact Stress

This Final Report summarizes the research performed and-provides a brief review of the major results of the program. The problems discussed include: the development of cost-effective methods for finding the wheel-rail contact patch, finding subsurface internal stresses, determining points where...

Freight Car Dynamics: Final Report

The objective of this research project was to develop techniques to analyze the lateral dynamic behavior of railroad freight cars. The effort included development and correlation of theoretical techniques for predicting freight car dynamic behavior, and use of the techniques to investigate the...

Freight Car Dynamics: Field Test Results and Comparison with Theory

Field tests of a'conventional rail freight car were conducted to provide data for comparison with theoretical analyses of rail freight car dynamic behavior. These tests, carried out by the Association of American Railroads and the Union Pacific Railroad, were designed to provide experimental...

Fatigue Crack Growth Properties of Rail Steels

Fatigue crack propagation properties of rail steels were determined experimentally. The investigation covered 66 rail steels. The effects of the following parameters were studies: stress ratio (ratio of minimum to maximum stress in a cycle), frequency, temperature and orientation. The results were...

Engineering Analysis of Stresses in Railroad Rails

One portion of the Federal Railroad Administration’s (FRA) Track Performance Improvement Program is the development of engineering and analytic techniques required for the design and maintenance of railroad track of increased integrity and safety. Under the program management of Transportation...