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ABSTRACT
An accurate structural assessment of rails under combined effect of fatigue and corrosion prevents a phenomenal disaster, also saves millions of dollars and people’s lives. Recent studies which are proposed to simulate a precise model fail to take into account the different underlying mechanism for rail corrosion. The current study presents a numerical procedure to investigate crack initiation under combined effect of fatigue and corrosion. A three-dimensional (3D) finite element model (FEM) which accounts for rolling contact stresses due to wheel-rail contact loads is developed. Then, stress distribution is used in a MATLAB code to estimate the fatigue crack initiation life. The advantage of the proposed model is considering the combined effect of rolling contact fatigue and corrosion on structural integrity of rails. This model is applied to a case study of rail assessment in Melbourne, Australia. The cracks orientations and locations which were based on the FEM results were in good agreement with the field observations.
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Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.