Venkatarami Reddy

Decision on economical rail grinding interval for controlling rolling contact fatigue

Rail players around the world have been increasing axle loads to improve the productivity of freight and heavy haul operations. This has increased the risk of surface cracks at curves because of rolling contact fatigue. Rail grinding has been considered an effective process for controlling these cracks and reducing risks of rail breaks. The complexity of deciding the optimal rail grinding intervals for improving the reliability and safety of rails is because of insufficient understanding of the various factors involved in the crack initiation and propagation process. This paper focuses on identifying the factors influencing rail degradation, developing models for rail failures and analyzing the costs of various grinding intervals for economic decision making. Various costs involved in rail maintenance, such as rail grinding, downtime, inspection, rail failures and derailment, and replacement of worn-out rails, are incorporated into the total cost model developed in this paper. Field data from the rail industry have been used for illustration.

Development of Wear-Fatigue-Lubrication-Interaction Model for Cost Effective Rail Maintenance Decisions

Prediction of operational risk and enhancement of reliability and safety for rail network are important to rail infrastructure providers and train operators. Rail defects leading to rail breaks and derailments cost huge amount due to cancelled / delayed traffic, emergency maintenance, loss of assets, loss of revenues and liability compensations due to down times. Wear occurring at the wheel/rail interface as a result of ineffective lubrication costs huge amount to rail infrastructure providers per year. Cost of rail-wheel maintenance and replacements are reduced significantly with effective lubrication. Studies on interaction of factors behind wear, fatigue, lubrication and grinding problems are required to monitor those factors and finding out cost effective technological solutions in predicting and reducing operational risks. This paper focuses on development of wear-fatigue-lubrication-interaction model for cost effective rail maintenance decisions.

Techniques in Developing Economic Decision Model Combining Above Rail and Below Rail Assets

Many of the rail infrastructure owners take ad-hoc decisions in inspection, lubrication and grinding strategies for controlling rolling contact fatigue (RCF) and wear. Limited research has been conducted in this area for economic effectiveness combining above rail and below rail assets. There is need to focus on damage of rail caused due to wheel and damage of wheel caused due to rail and total cost of rail and wheel for optimal replacements, maintenance and penalty costs to rail or train owners. This paper focuses on techniques in developing integrated economic decision model combining above rail and below rail assets for operational and maintenance strategies. These techniques able to analyse the effectiveness of operational and maintenance related decisions combining rail and wheel considering various scenarios.