Evaluation on Effectiveness of Rail Grinding by Prediction of Rail Fatigue Life

레일 피로수명 예측에 따른 레일 연마의 효용성 평가

The importance of maintenance of rail surface defects is increasing according to the KTX operation. That is because during high speed operation of rolling stocks, rail surface defects shorten fatigue life of rail, accelerate track degradation and deteriorate ride comfort. Rail grinding has been applied for effective rail maintenance in Kyeong-Bu HS line. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of rail grinding in term of rail fatigue life. To this end, the stresses of the ground rail are measured under KTX running and the equivalent stress range is calculated by RMC after the frequency analysis done with Rainflow counting method. Also, Pamglen-Miner rule is applied to predict the fatigue life of ground rail. The result of the analysis shows that the fatigue life of ground rail is increased by 15%.