Study of Thermal Stress and Heat Conduction in Rails Using Numerical and Computational Analysis

Thermal expansion and contraction cause longitudinal stress in rails that are restricted in their longitudinal movement or confined at the ends. And this causes a potential buckle or kink due to either compression or tension forces in the rails. In this paper, considering the linear expansion of a free section of rail subjected to a temperature change, the magnitude of the thermal forces and heat conductions generated in rails were studied. During a number of calculations, the fact that the normal force exerted on the railroad decreases as the rail temperature increases were discovered. Also, the change of railroad length at a certain temperature decreases as the rail temperature increases, and the change of railroad length also decreases as the initial railroad length decreases. Lastly, the pressure exerted on a section with smaller width is bigger than that on a section with a bigger width. Thus, by using the seasonal temperature of a certain region and the weight of a certain train in these calculations, one could speculate the appropriate width of the rail.