Dr. David Allen and Dr. Pete Keating have recently initiated an externally funded project that focuses on experimental observation of fatigue cracking in rails. In this project sections of rail that have previously been in service on heavy haul lines are subjected to both axial and transverse cyclic loading up to 600,000 cycles. During the testing the rails are periodically inspected using phased array ultrasonic transducers as a tool for determining the long term growth of cracks in rails. It is hoped that these tests will provide information critical to the development of rail fatigue models currently under development under other projects
Click here for a sneak peak at our experimental rail testing project:
