On the influence of crossing angle on long-term rail damage evolution in railway crossings

Journal article, 2021

The rails in railway crossings are subjected to severe load environment leading to degradation of running surface due to wear and accumulated plastic deformation. To compare long-term degradation of three fixed crossings with different crossing angles, nominally designated 1:12, 1:15, and 1:18.5, a multidisciplinary simulation methodology is applied to predict damage of the crossing rail. For a given traffic scenario, including up to 65 MGT of facing move passenger traffic in through route, the results show that damage increases with increasing crossing angle. The ratio between the maximum damage for the crossings with the largest and smallest crossing angles is found to be about three in terms of wear and about two for plastic deformation. Initially high rate of plastic deformation reduces significantly after the first 2–5 MGT, and after 10–30 MGT it approaches a nearly constant value that is significantly lower than the wear rate.