FY15 Supplemental to Development and Evaluation of Continuous Welded Rail-Joints

ontinue the evaluation of the durability of the continuous welded rail-joints, and the related PhD dissertation, expected to be conferred in May 2016, based on this research work. Items of work for completion of this research in progress include the following: 1. Complete the fatigue durability studies of the head, web and base sections of the CWR joints. 2. Perform post-weld heat treatment (PWHT) of the head section of the CWR joints for head hardening similar to the parent rail head. 3. Characterize the PWHT- CWR joints for their hardness, microstructure and mechanical properties. 4. Perform additional morphological studies on the fatigue cracked samples to identify the fatigue damage tolerance (durability) features. 5. Perform scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis on the fractured specimens to identify fatigue fracture resistance mechanisms.