Uniaxial Ratcheting and Low-Cycle Fatigue Failure of U75V Rail Steel

Abstract

Experiments on U75V rail steel were carried out to investigate the cyclic feature, ratcheting behavior and low-cycle fatigue under both strain- and stress-controlled loadings at room temperature. It was found that U75V rail steel shows strain amplitude dependent cyclic softening feature, i.e., the responded stress amplitude under strain-controlled decreases with the increasing number of cycles and reaches a stable value after about 20th cycle. Ratcheting strain increases with an increasing stress amplitude and mean stress, except for stress ratio, and the ratcheting strain in failure also increases with an increasing stress amplitude, mean stress and stress ratio. The low-cycle fatigue lives under cyclic straining decrease linearly with an increasing strain amplitude, the fatigue lives under cyclic stressing decrease with an increasing mean stress except for zero mean stress, and decrease with an increasing stress amplitude. Ratcheting behavior with a high mean stress reduces fatigue life of rail steel by comparing fatigue lives under stress cycling with those under strain cycling. Research findings are helpful to evaluate fatigue life of U75V rail steel in the railways with passenger and freight traffic.