The required rail straightness is achieved by straightening with roller straighteners. The consequence of the straightening operation is the introduction of residual stresses to the straightened rail. An excessive level of residual stresses accumulated in the rail during use in the track may lead to its damage or fracture. ArcelorMittal Poland S.A., in cooperation with Łukasiewicz Research Network – Institute for Ferrous Metallurgy, carried out a research project (POI R.01.02.00-00-0167/16) the aim of which was to reduce residual stresses in railway rails by changing the technological parameters of the straightening process. The results of the presented study relate to rails 60E1 and 60E2. The study includes the measurement, testing, calculations and analyses of the obtained results. The conducted research indicates the possibility of obtaining a low level of residual stress in the rails for a system consisting of a 7-roller vertical straightener and a 9-roller horizontal straightener by changing the roller settings, the shape of the rollers, the shape of the rail foot and its curvature.

The process of railway track adjustment is a task which includes bringing, in geometrical terms, the actual track axis to the position ensuring safe and efficient traffic of rail vehicles. The initial calculation stage of this process is to determine approximately the limits of sections of different geometry, i.e. straight lines, arcs and transition curves. This allows to draw up a draft alignment design, which is subject to control the position relative to the current state. In practice, this type of a project rarely meets the requirements associated with the values of corrective alignments. Therefore, it becomes necessary to apply iterated correction of a solution in order to determine the final project, allowing to introduce minor corrections while maintaining the assumed parameters of the route. The degree of complexity of this process is defined by the quality of determining a preliminary draft alignment design. Delimitation of the sections for creation of creating such a design, is usually done by using the curvature diagram (InRail v8.7 Reference Guide [1], Jamka et al [2], Strach [3]), which is, however, sensitive to the misalignment of the track and measurement errors. In their paper Lenda and Strach [4] proposed a new method for creating curvature diagram, based on approximating spline function, theoretically allowing, inter alia, to reduce vulnerability to interference factors. In this study, the method to determine a preliminary draft alignment design for the track with severe overexploitation was used, and thus in the conditions adversely affecting the accuracy of the conducted readings. The results were compared to the ones obtained using classical curvature diagram. The obtained results indicate that the method allows to increase the readability of a curvature graph, which at considerable deregulation of a track takes an irregular shape, difficult to interpret. The method also favourably affects the accuracy of determining the initial parameters of the project, reducing the entire process of calculation.

The authors present the part of research devoted to the "squat" -type crack development in the heads of railway rails. This paper contains description of the results of investigations of the influence of the dynamic interaction, between the railway bogie running along the track on the "squat't-type crack development. The studies are performed by the use of computer simulation technique. The study is divided into two parts. The first part explains, how the vertical displacement of the wheel varies during the quasi-static rolling of the bo gie wheel along the cracked rail. In the second part of the paper, this displacements fluctuation is introduced to dynamic analysis. The histories of the wheel-rail force fluctuation during passage along the rail with the "squat'l-type crack were obtained as the result of dynamic analysis.

The problem of a closed-form accurate determination of self and mutual capacitance of conductors in air and earth is considered: the application is the complete modeling of a railway line including buried conductors. The Generalized Potential Method (GPM) is presented and analyzed with regard to conditions of validity and solution methods. The accuracy of the GPM is evaluated solving some reference cases using the Complex Image Method and a commercial Finite Element Method simulator, comparing the model results with experimental data, and including the sensitivity on soil conductivity and permittivity, distance of conductors from the air–earth interface and frequency.

The article presents measurement methods serving to determine electric and magnetic properties of rails (60E1) used to construct railroad turnouts. Knowledge of a rail's electric and magnetic properties is necessary to analyse the phenomena in the rail's internal structure when under impact of a powerful electromagnetic field. The electric and magnetic properties will also help to develop a simulation model of Turnhout induction heating in 2D and 3D space.

The transition effect between different track-foundation systems is examined from the point of view of energy that is produced during the passage of load. Analytical solution is given. A model of beam on elastic foundation with damping is used as the base model. It is developed into a model composed of two parts that represent the track-subgrade system with an abrupt change in mechanical parameters: bending stiffness, foundation stiffness, damping, and mass. Several calculations are carried out including examples of comparative calculations with the Finite Difference Model and the Finite Element Model. Transient rail deflections and energy are determined, which may serve to estimate the rate of track-subgrade deterioration.

The paper presents the impact of exceeding the railway rails lifespan which usually causes a railway structural failure, thus an accident. The research highlights the rails’s high degradation, especially on the running area, consisting in 60-70% weight loss by advanced wear of the rail, followed by fatigue fracture caused by alternating cyclic stresses that initiates the crack and also by tensile stresses resulting in the crack growth. The chemical composition, structural and mechanical properties were analyzed in order to establish the causes that led to the railway rails rupture.

The paper presents research on the capability of the residual magnetic field (RMF) measurement system to be applied to the railway inspection for the early non-destructive detection of defects. The metal magnetic memory (MMM) phenomena are analysed using normal component Hy of self-magnetic flux leakage (SMFL), and its tangential component Hx, as well as their respective gradients. The measurement apparatus is described together with possible factors that may affect the results of measurement. The Type A uncertainty estimation and repeatability tests were performed. The results demonstrate that the system may be successfully applied to detection of head check flaws.

The paper presents a summary of research on the possibility of influencing the state of residual stresses in railway rails by changing the pass design of vertical and horizontal straightener rollers and optimising their distribution on the rail perimeter. The presented results are devoted to the influence of profiled rollers on the level of residual stresses. A wide range of theoretical considerations were carried out based on the use of the finite element method using the commercial Forge software package. In order to verify the results of the theoretical considerations most reliably, a series of “in situ” experiments were conducted in industrial conditions on an existing production line. The tests were carried out on 120 meters long 60E1 railway rails. A significant reduction in the level of residual stresses compared to the standard requirements was achieved.

The article presents the results of the last stage of work on the impact of changes in the roll pass design on the state of residual stresses in railway rails. The discussed stage includes the summary of industrial experiments of rolling 60E1 rails with a length of 120 meters using a modified pass design of roll grooves. The rolling technology has been deeply modified, ranging from the finishing stand, through the pre-finishing stand, to the semi-finishing stand. The rails in this experiment were cooled using standard cooling technology and then straightened using innovative vertical straightener shaped rollers. Residual stresses were tested using the strain gauge method and the hole-drilling strain gauge method by drilling a hole in the rail axis and at a distance of 14 millimetres from its axis. The resulting tensile stresses in the rail foot were reduced to an average level of less than 43% in relation to the requirements of the EN13674-1 standard.

The paper presents the design of a specific type of instrumented wheelset intended for continuous measuring of lateral and vertical wheel-rail interaction forces Y and Q, in accordance with regulations EN 14363 and UIC 518. The platform is a standard heavy wheelset BA314 with an axle-load of 25 tons. The key problems of smart instrumentalization are solved by the use of the wheel’s numerical FEM model, which provides a significant cost reduction in the initial stage of development of the instrumented wheelset. The main goal is to ensure high measuring accuracy. The results of the FEM calculations in ANSYS are basis for identification of the distribution of strains on the internal and external side of the wheel disc. Consequently, the most convenient radial distances for installation of strain gauges of Wheatstone measuring bridges are determined. In the next stage, the disposition, number and ways of interconnection of strain gauges in the measuring bridges are defined. Ultimately, an algorithm for inverse determination of parameters Y and Q based on mixed signals from the measuring bridges is developed. The developed solution is validated through tests on specific examples, using a created numerical FEM model. A high accuracy of estimation of unknown parameters Y and Q is obtained with an error of less than 4.5%, while the error of estimation of their ratio Y/Q is less than 2%. Therefore, the proposed solution can be efficiently used in the instrumentalization of the considered wheelset, while the problems of its practical implementation will be the subject of further research.

In this study, the issue of intensity of cargo train-induced soil vibrations is presented. Oscillations were measured in Warsaw-Rembertow location with application of set of seismic receivers. The analysis concerns the ground vibration differentiation issue, depending on considered direction of oscillation propagation plane. Statistic distribution of vibration intensity for directions in 3-D space were done. The issue of potential effect on engineering structures of recorded vibrations was raised. The impact based on Scale of Dynamic Effects standard was estimated in the article. Vibration intensity results were also compared with classification according to the Swiss Standard.