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Repair of light rail track through restoration of the worn part of the railhead using submerged arc welding process

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Abstract

A surface worn C-Mn rail is repaired by retrieving the lost part of the railhead using a commercial rutile flux-cored wire submerged arc welding (SAW) method. Optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), electron-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), and Rockwell B hardness test are employed to investigate the properties of the repaired rail specimen. After the first set of analysis, the as-repaired rail is heated up to 1100 °C and water-quenched to room temperature to increase hardness. Each specimen is analytically partitioned into three zones including weld zone (WZ), heat-affected zone (HAZ), and the unaffected rail substrate. The as-repaired rail WZ is primarily composed of pearlite, ferrite, and austenite with a low hardness of 80 HRB, whereas the austenite phase is gone in the as-quenched rail and a massive extent of carbides are precipitated which increased hardness to 95 HRB. The microstructure of the HAZ in the as-repaired sample is a uniform distribution of fine-grained ferrite, pearlite, and carbide with the hardness of 92 HRB, while the microstructure of the identical zone in the as-quenched specimen is mainly martensitic-pearlitic with the highest average hardness among all zones, 110 HRB. The results presented an immense potential for SAW in rail repair.

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Acknowledgments

This study is supported by the University Transportation Center (UTC) program of the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). Appreciation is given to Dr. Thomas Hartmann, Dr. Minghua Ren, and Dr. Daniel Koury from the Departments of Mechanical Engineering, Geoscience, and Chemistry, respectively, at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), for supporting the microstructure experimental analysis in this research. The authors would also like to give gratitude to Randall Hees, the Director of the Nevada Southern Railroad, Inc., for their assistance and for providing the required tools. The second author is the Principal Investigator of the research project, and the third author is the Director of the University Transportation Center (UTC) program at UNLV, who proposed the study. The first author is a graduate student at UNLV, conducting the study under the advisory of the second and third authors.

Funding

This study was funded by the University Transportation Center (UTC) program of the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Nevada Las Vegas, 4505 S. Maryland Pkwy., P.O. Box 454027, Las Vegas, NV, 89154, USA

    Ershad Mortazavian & Zhiyong Wang

  2. Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV, 89154, USA

    Hualiang Teng

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  1. Ershad Mortazavian
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Correspondence to Zhiyong Wang.

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Mortazavian, E., Wang, Z. & Teng, H. Repair of light rail track through restoration of the worn part of the railhead using submerged arc welding process. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 107, 3315–3332 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-020-05208-x

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