Reliability Centred Maintenance (RCM) Assessment of Rail Wear Degradation

Abstract

AbstractRail wear degradation durability performance is an important concern that affects railway track maintenance and strategies to mitigate and prevent costly events of rail steel failures. An understanding of wear degradation will enable predictions of rail wear degradation trends, providing guidance for effective rail maintenance planning. In this work, an approach to predict rail steel wear degradation based on rail wear records is developed. The approach is based on statistical modelling of wear degradation data from maintenance records. For each track type and radius, available historical wear measurements are extrapolated to wear limits (as time-to-failure), and suitable continuous probability distributions are used to fit these failures. The low rail head wear and high rail side wear of sharp curves deemed most critical are emphasized, while differentiating the different track foundation types (viaduct or tunnel). Predictions can be made for the degradation trend of rails, providing guidance for effective rail maintenance planning. As an example, for R300 (sharp curve radius of 300 m) high rails in the tunnel sections, rail wear failures follow an increasing failure rate Weibull distribution, with scale parameter of about 20 years. This indicates that a large proportion of rails will fail within that stipulated time frame, and hence, it is mandatory for these rails to be replaced in advance prior to failure.KeywordsWearReliabilityDegradationRailwayWeibull distribution