FAILURE STUDY OF THE

RAILWAY RAIL SERVICE FOR

HEAVY CARGO TRAINS
  Railway rails were butt-welded together by
the alumino thermic welding
process(workpiece is joined with the help of
molten metal by means of an exothermic
reaction) and the post weld heat treatment
were not conducted.
 Railway rail come into service in May 2005.
BACKGROUND  Railway were found to be fractured in
December 2011.
 During 2005-2011, this route was serviced for
heavy cargo trains.
 Type of the rail steel was GB P60U75V as
introduced by the Railway Administration
Staff.
RESULTS

1. MACROSCOPIC INSPECTIONS
2. CHEMICAL ANALYSIS.
3. SEM OBSERVATIONS.
4. METALLURGICAL OBSERVATIONS.
1. MACROSCOPIC INSPECTIONS

 The Macroscopic fracture

morphology of the fractured railway
train is shown in these figures:-
 It was found that the fractured
surface was basically clean and fresh,
which demonstrated that the
corrosion of the fracture surface was
not heavy.
 The top was rail head contacted with
wheel rim, the bottom was the rail
bottom contacted with the blast, the
middle part between the rail head
and rail bottom was the rail web.
 Fracture surface at the rail bottom was
closed to the weld bed and relatively flat,
and the fracture surface was approximately
perpendicular to the longitudinal direction
of the railway rail.
 The fracture surface at the rail web was
arched when observed from the profile.
 The fracture surface at the rail head was
inclined at about 60 D to the longitudinal
direction of the railway rail.
 The fracture surface at the rail head was
very rough, therefore, it was deduced that
this part might be caused final instant
fracture instead of the fractured origin.
 There was darkly fan shaped area at the left bottom.
 A small bright spot was spotted next to the darkly
fan shaped area.
 The bright spot was not separated yet when the
railway rail failed.
 (Since the railway rail was subjected to cyclic rolling
and served about six years, it is rational to consider
that this railway rail might be failed due to fatigue,
even in gigacycle fatigue regime.)
 The arc boundary of fan shaped area looks like a
beach marked.
 It can be deduced that the cracked origin might be at
the corner of the darkly fan shaped area.
 The chevron patterns can be clearly
observed at the fracture surface of the rail
bottom.
 Therefore, we can deduce that the cracked
origin should be at the tip of the chevron
patterns, and the crack growth direction is
along the diverging direction of river
patterns.
 It can be deduced that the macro fracture
feature is brittle fracture.
  The Sample used for chemical analysis which
was sample from rail head was analyzed by ZSX
primus-II x-ray fluorescence spectro metre. The
result were shown in the table given below:-
2. CHEMICAL
OBSERVATIONS
  Higher oxygen contents were detacted, which
demonstrates that this area was oxidised
heavily.
3. SEM  The fan shaped patterns, cleavage step and
OBSERVATIONS river patterns which are typical feature of
cleavage fracture(tendency of a mineral to
(scanning electron break along smooth planes parallel to zones of
weak bonding) are observed.
microscope):produce  The fracture surface outside the darkly fan
s image of sample by shaped area is clean and fresh, almost no
oxygen is detacted.
scanning the surface
 Combined with the experimental results
with focused beam of outside and inside the darkly fan shaped area,
it can be deduced that the darkly fan shaped
electrons area might be an incomplete fusion area
during welding.
  Firstly, surface S2 (figure-2) was polished to observe the
distribution of inclusions.(thing that is included within the whole).
 It was shown in the figure-4 that some bigger slag inclusions with
sharp angular shape were observed at surface S2 close to the
fracture surface at the rail bottom .
 The size of these slag inclusions was about atleast 126 micrometre
by Murakami”s affective projective areas.
 EDX demonstrated that the composition of these slag inclusions
4. METALLURGICAL 
was alumina.
Continuous ferrite networks and pear lite colonies were observed
OBSERVATIONS close to the fracture surface.
 In figure 5-A, the size of pear lite colony viz, the area surrounded
by continuous ferrite network, was rather heterogeneous.
 Continuous ferrite network and a mass of ferrite fragments
distributed inside the pear lite colonies is shown in figure 5-B.
 Considering the weaker strength of ferrite distributed like nets
compared with pear lite, it can be deduced that the crack might be
initiated from the ferrite network.
CONCLUSION

This failed railway rail is caused by overload.

The crack is initiated from the weaker ferrite networks

which are induced by inadequate welding technology.

It is of great importance to improve welding technology,

and control the load of train in future.