Residual stresses near a rail end

Stress fields near a cut end of a rail containing longitudinal residual stress typical of roller-straightened rail were studied using analysis and a finite element model. For a self-equilibrating residual stress distribution with equal maximum and minimum stresses, the distance to reach 95% of the mid-rail residual stress field is from 0.7 to 1.8 times the rail height, with the finite element model predicting a length of 1.1 times the rail height. This gives a measure of the accuracy of the simpler analytical models. At the rail end, the longitudinal residual stress goes to zero, and the vertical residual stress near mid-web reaches a maximum of approximately 27 ksi (186 MPa) (1.35 times the maximum mid-rail longitudinal residual stress of 20 ksi, or 138 MPa). The maximum shear stresses are 6 ksi (41 MPa) and −8 ksi (−55 MPa) near the head-web and web-base intersections, respectively, approximately 2 in. (51 mm) from the end of a 7.3 in. (185 mm) high rail. The shear stress is zero at the cut end and in mid-rail. The worst possible end-crack is a horizontal web crack in the vertical residual stress field at the rail end. The stress intensity K_I on such a crack is estimated to reach 20 ksi√in. (22 MPa√m) for cracks 0.5 in. (13mm) long. This is already 0.4 to 0.8 times K_I for carbon and alloy rails, and about 0.5 times K_Ic for a long crack.