Stability of Continuous Welded Rail Track under Thermal Load

For many decades, the railway was constructed using tracks with jointed rails of relatively short lengths in accordance with rolling and handling technology. The joints cause many drawbacks in the track and lead to significant maintenance cost. So, railroad engineers became interested in eliminating joints to increase service loads ana speeds by improving rolling, welding, and fastening technology. Continuous welded rail(CWR) track has many advantages over the conventional jointed-rail track. But, in the case of the elimination of rail joints, it may cause the track to be suddenly buckled laterally by thermal loads. In this paper, CWR track model and CWRB program are developed for linear buckling analysis using finite element method. Rail element with a total of 14 degrees of freedom is used. The stiffness of the fastener, tie, and ballast bed are included by a set of spring elements. The investigation on the buckling modes and temperature of CWR track is presented.