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.

Portions of the Department of Transportation are currently in shutdown/furlough status due to a lapse in appropriations. Please continue to monitor this page for updates on DOT’s operating status.
U.S. Department of Transportation U.S. Department of Transportation Icon United States Department of Transportation United States Department of Transportation

General

Subscribe to RSS

Experimental Study of Residual Stresses in Rail by Moire Interferometry

The residual stresses in rails produced by rolling cycles are studied experimentally by moire interferometry. The dissection technique is adopted for this investigation. The basic principle of the dissection technique is that the residual stress is released elastically by creating free boundaries...

Experimental Investigations of Dynamic Buckling of CWR Tracks

Thermal Buclking of railroad tracks in the lateral plane is an important problem in the design and maintenance of continous welded rail (CWR) tracks. The severity of the problem is mainfested through the large number of derailments which are attributable to track buckling, indicating a need for...

Determination of Residual Stresses in Rails

A destructive sectioning technique for measuring the complete three-dimensional residual stresses in a rail cross section was developed. The technique was applied to four tangent rail specimens: two 136-pound specimens were taken from FAST (Facility for Accelerated Service Testing), Pueblo,...

The Effect of Imperfections on the Vertical Buckling of Railroad Tracks

This report deals with an analytical prediction of the effect of geometric imperfections on the post-buckling characteristics of railroad tracks. The analysis is restricted to the case of vertical track buckling due to constrained thermal expansion in which the track is assumed to lift itself up...