Effect of rail cant on stress distribution

The rail cant is an important geometry parameter and is commonly monitored to ensure railway safety and comfort conditions. Understanding the influence of cant variation on the performance of railway components is extremely important to define the tolerance limits of the track and adequacy of maintenance plans. There are numerous rail cant patterns on railways, 1:40, 1:30, 1:20. However, the optimal rail cant to reduce the stress and wear of rail head not been extensively studied. This work performs an analysis of the effect of the rail cant on the rail head stress distribution. To investigate stress and strain in rail head, a Finite Element Model with Ansys software was used. For the analysis was considered a 136RE rail, axle load of 32 ton and AAR-1B wheel profile. The rail cant was varied in 0, 1:20 and 1:40. The results show that the stress in rail and wheel increases with the rail cant. The maximum stress occurred in the condition with rail cant of 1:20. The variation of cant from 0 to 1:20 results in a decrease of approximately 9% in maximum stress, ranging from 947 MPa to 867 MPa. The wheel/rail contact in cant zero condition occurred close to the transition of the wheel tread and the beginning of flange root, resulting in a dynamic instability in the wheelset. In addition to higher contact stress, increases the propensity for the hutting phenomenon, which can accelerate rail and wheel wear