Safe life and damage tolerance aspects of railway axles – A review

The paper gives an overview on safe life and damage tolerance methods applied to railway axles. It describes failure scenarios due to fatigue crack initiation and propagation. Besides common aspects of design, specific features such as corrosion and impact damage from flying ballast are discussed which may reduce the fatigue strength of axles during service. Potential effects of non-metallic inclusions from the steel manufacturing process are addressed in the context of the very high number of loading cycles railway axles are designed for. With respect to damage tolerance general lines of fracture mechanics residual lifetime analyses are introduced. More specific discussion is provided on aspects such as the threshold value of fatigue crack propagation and reliability aspects of non-destructive inspection.