Papers by Author: M.A. Aziman

Abstract: This paper presents the identification of damages and stress analysis of rail/wheel rolling contact region. The railhead surface of used rail track was investigated to identify damages and the hardness of the rail/wheel contact area was measured. Finite element method FEM code, ANSYS was used to determine the stress distribution at vicinity of rail/wheel contact area. The results showed that the hardness increased on the contact area between rail and wheel due to repeated rolling contact of rail and wheel surface. Severe damages and cracks were observed on the railhead surface and in the cross section of the rail at the contact region. The FEM simulation showed that the highest stress distribution regions were matched with the area of severely damage and high hardness obtained from the observation and experimental results.

Abstract: Fracture toughness KC and fatigue crack growth behavior of commuter train’s rail track material used in Klang Valley, Malaysia was investigated. Two different tests were performed in accordance to ASTM E399 and E647 testing procedures using single edge notch bend (SENB) and compact tension (CT) specimens, respectively. The results showed that the average KC value of the rail track material was 51.7 MPa√m. On the other hand, from the fatigue crack growth test, both longitudinal (LD) and short-transverse (TD) direction specimens demonstrated identical Paris’ Law constants C and m of 1.3 x 10-12 m/cycle and 3.54, respectively. Prediction of bending fatigue life of rail track material using the above obtained parameters showed a good agreement with the experimental results.