Development on Stress Monitoring Method for Measurement of Cyclic Stress of Railway Axles

In general, the S-N curve in railway axles was mainly carried out under 107-108 cycles, while the service area of a railway axle is 108-109 cycles. The strain gages using electrical resistance have been used to measure stresses in railway vehicle wheelsets. However, there are some problems with strain gages using electrical resistance for railway axles. For example, the measured data is for special or limited intervals only. Strain gage installation is complicated, that is, it requires lead wires for measurement. The design of railway axles makes use of data that was obtained many years ago. The applied stresses in wheelsets running for a long time and in new railway vehicle wheelsets have not been studied clearly yet. It is necessary to carry out stress monitoring for more than 108 cycles to evaluate the safety of railway wheelset. Therefore, it is necessary to develop new stress monitoring techniques that can easily measure the working stress of the wheelset. In the present paper, the stress measurement technique of copper electroplating is considered because of its high potential for this purpose.