The corrugation of railway rails: 2. Monitoring and conclusions

Abstract

Monitoring of test sites has been undertaken on a new metro system for 2 years after the start of service traffic to examine whether rail corrugation would occur. The track specification required that all known corrugation formation mechanisms be considered, and mitigation measures taken for design of the trackwork. The metro includes demanding conditions for corrugation formation. Monitoring was undertaken twice annually for the first 2 years of operation at nine test sites. After this time, irregularities at all sites and in all wavelength ranges were within the limits for Class 1 reprofiling in the 2006 version of the European Standard for reprofiling, in which limits on irregularities are similar to those of the acoustic standard EN ISO3095:2005. A method of undertaking a corrugation survey is presented from which it was deduced that at most 2.5% of the overall length of the railway was corrugated to an extent that could be detected by this means.

Keywords

rail corrugation railway track metro systems trackwork rail irregularities acoustic roughness rail corrugation measurement

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Grassie

. The corrugation of railway rails: 1. Introduction and mitigation measures. Journal of Rail and Rapid Transit, Procs of I mech E, JRRT-22-0083.

Available online: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kajang_line (2021, accessed 7 October 2021).

Grassie

Kalousek

. Rail corrugation: characteristics, causes and treatments. J Rail Rapid Transit Procs Mech E 1993; 207F: 57–68.

Grassie

. Rail irregularities, corrugation and acoustic roughness: characteristics, significance and effects of reprofiling on different types of railway system. J Rail Rapid Transit, Procs Mech E 2012; 226F: 542–557.

Grassie

Edwards

Shepherd

. Roaring rails: an enigma largely explained. Int Railway J 2007; 2007: 31–33.

Grassie

Edwards

. Development of corrugation as a result of varying normal load. Wear 2008; 265: 1150–1155.

Railway Applications––Track––Acceptance of Works––Part 3: Acceptance of Reprofiling Rails in Track. Brussels: European Standard EN 13231-3:2012.

Railway Applications––Track––Acceptance of Works––Part 3: Acceptance of Rail Grinding, Milling and Planing Work in Track. Brussels: European Standard EN 13231-3:2006.

Grassie

Saxon

Smith

. Measurement of longitudinal rail irregularities and criteria for acceptable grinding. J Sound Vib 1999; 227: 949–964.

10.

Railway applications – noise emission – Rail roughness measurement related to rolling noise generation. Brussels: Eur Stand BS EN 15610:2009.

11.

Acoustics - Railway applications – Measurement of noise emitted by railbound vehicles. Brussels: EN ISO 3095:2005.

12.

Schulte-Werning

Jaeger

Strube

, et al. Recent developments in noise research at Deutsche Bahn (noise assessment, noise localization and specially monitored track. J Sound Vibration 2003; 267: 689–699.

13.

Grassie

. Controlling irregularities in rail to reduce noise. Int Railway J 2010; 2010: 38–42.

14.

Grassie

Johnson

. Periodic microslip between a rolling wheel and a corrugated rail. Wear 1985; 101: 291–305.

15.

Torstensson

Nielsen

JCO

. Simulation of dynamic vehicle-track interaction on small radius curves. Vehicle Syst Dyn 2011; 49: 1711–1732.

16.

Kurzeck

. Combined friction induced oscillations of wheelset and track during the curving of metros and their influence on corrugation. Wear 2011; 271: 299–310.