Railway maintenance contributes to the major costs of running a rail network. During maintenance, re-profiling the railhead or removal of the damaged surface can be a temporary solution to increase the life expectancy of the rail, but repair is preferable. Laser cladding was used to repair a heavy-haul Australian rails.
As heat input is involved in the cladding process often residual stresses develop and they can influence the fatigue life and wear. Novel measurements strategy using blind-hole was implemented to measure stresses in thick cladded rails with high resolution for the first time at ANSTO. The experimental work proved that laser cladding can lead to efficient, reliable and cost-effective repairs.
This work was supported by the ARC Linkage Project on the development of functionally-graded materials for wheel-rail contact using laser cladding with partners: Monash University, ANSTO and Hardchrome Engineering. This work formed a significant part of PhD thesis of the Dr Taposh Roy.
