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Research Results Digest 79

This digest summarizes the results of TCRP Project D-7/Task 15. The digest was prepared by the Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI) in Pueblo, Colorado.

Investigation of Rail Bolt Hole Cracks

This document is a collection of two reports on the rail bolt hold crack. part I describes the development of a model based on beam-on-elastic foundation analysis to calculate the shear force acting at a given bolt hold location. The model includes the effects of wheel and joint bar forces, joint...

Parametric Analysis and Safety Concepts of CWR Track Buckling

The work reported here is part of a major investigation conducted by the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center for the Federal Railroad Administration on the thermal buckling of continuous welded rail (WER) track in the lateral plane with the objective of developing guidelines and...

Analysis of Lateral Rail Restraint

Rail restraint failure is one of the most prevalent derailment modes in railroad operation. Analytical and experimental investigations of track gauge widening have been undertaken by the Transportation Systems Center ins support of the Federal Railroad Administration's Track Safety Research Program...

Development of a Prototype EMAT System for Inspection of Rails

This is the Final Report of the First Phase of an investigation of the application of Electromagnetic Acoustic Transducers (EMATs) to detect flaws in railroad rails. EMAT's generate ultrasonic beams in rails and receive return signals without surface contact and without liquid couplant. This work...

An Analysis of Thermal Track Buckling in the Lateral Plane

The post buckling equilibrium states are determined analytically. To obtain a consisten formulation of the problem, use is made of the principle of virtual displacements and the variation calculus for variable matching points. The obtained formulations are nonlinear, but can be solved exactly....

Longitudinal Forces in Railroad Track

This work is devoted to the theory of design computations for track subjected to thermal and creep forces. The theory of longitudinal forces and displacements arising in continuous welded rail (CWR) track due to temperature changes is mathematically developed. A description of results of...