Keywords: short crack, wear, Hobson law, Archard model, rolling contact fatigue, rail.

A numerical simulation model has been developed to simulate the competition between short crack propagation and wear in a railhead. The locations of the crack initiation are given by a random generator in the ferrite regions at the beginning of the simulation. The crack is assumed to initiate when the total accumulated plastic shear strain in the region reaches the critical shear strain value. The growth of a Stage I short crack occurs along the proeutectoid ferrite, in the ferrite plates and ferrite of the lamellae structure in the pearlite grains. If the crack becomes long enough to open its faces, a Stage II short crack growth is assumed to occur. In these crack growth simulations, Hobson law is applied. With regard to wear, the Archard model is adopted as the basis. The wear depth can be calculated from the normal pressure distribution in the wheel-rail contact region, the sliding velocities etc. The present model can help the prediction of the wear and rolling contact fatigue portions in the width direction and in the decision making of the hardness distribution according to the track conditions without manufacturing real rails and testing them in the laboratory or installing them on revenue railway lines.

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