A Study on Fatigue Strength Improvement for Tension Clamp of Railway Using Work Hardening

Abstract

Since the tension clamp is essential for the safe operation of trains, the problem of the broken tension clamp must be carefully managed. The damage of the tension clamp can be caused by various reasons such as track conditions and dynamic behaviours of trains. In this paper, the improvement of durability through the improvement of fatigue strength was studied by considering the experiment results and the FE analyses. First, the analytical model was verified by comparing the results of the stress and strain distributions with the initial clamping force and the results of the FE analyses. And then, the method to improve the fatigue strength characteristics was analytically evaluated by considering the behaviour of tension clamp (middle band and spring arm) and work hardening characteristics.