Railway Dynamic Load Factors Developed from Instrumented Wheelset Measurements
Publication: Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems
Volume 148, Issue 7
Abstract
Dynamic load factors () relate the magnitude of vertical wheel-to-rail loads in operation (dynamic loads) to static loads resulting from the weight of the rail car and its contents, as a function of train speed. The equations are often used in the selection of rail steel and cross-sections (weight). Equations for have been put forth by the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association (AREMA) and others. A limitation of the existing equations is that they have been derived from loads measured at instrumented sections of track and observe the many wheel loads but with constant track conditions. For this study, measurements of dynamic loads from two instrumented wheelset (IWS) as it conducted four passes over a 340 km section of track operated by a North American Class 1 freight railway through the Canadian Prairies. These measurements provided dynamic loads from one loaded freight car over various track structures at differing train speeds. This paper presents the IWS data sets and the variation of dynamic loads between multiple passes of the section of track studied, and the statistical distribution of dynamic loads. New equations are developed for tangent track and nontangent track (inclusive of bridges, grade crossings, curves, and switches).
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Data Availability Statement
IWS and track geometry data used during the study were collected jointly by CaRRL, the National Research Council Canada (NRC), and the host railway. All position data recorded during this study are confidential in nature and may only be provided with approval of the host railway.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the Canadian National Railway for their support and facilitation of this project. Specifically, Tom Edwards for facilitating the collection of these data sets. This research was made possible through the Canadian Rail Research Laboratory (www.carrl.ca). Funding was provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC-IRC 523369-18), Canadian National Railway, the National Research Council of Canada, and Transport Canada.
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Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems
Volume 148 • Issue 7 • July 2022
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This work is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
History
Received: Sep 25, 2021
Accepted: Feb 11, 2022
Published online: Apr 28, 2022
Published in print: Jul 1, 2022
Discussion open until: Sep 28, 2022
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