The Influence of Changes in Roll Pass Design on the State of Residual Stresses in Railway Rails - Summary

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.

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This study was supported by the National Centre for Research and Development, Poland, under the research project entitled “Innovative and safe rails with a low level of residual stresses in the foot of the rail” - Poir.01.02.00-00-0167/16.