Modeling Rail Fatigue Behavior with Multiple Hazards
- 1 June 1996
- journal article
- Published by American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) in Journal of Infrastructure Systems
- Vol. 2 (2) , 73-82
- https://doi.org/10.1061/(asce)1076-0342(1996)2:2(73)
Abstract
Rail fatigue failures are of great concern to railroad companies because they may cause derailments. Therefore, the railroad companies' objective is to predict the locations and times of potential failures and perform preventive maintenance. To predict when and where rail fatigue failures will occur, it is necessary to establish the relationship between fatigue failures and factors affecting fatigue. This paper specifies a statistical rail fatigue model in four stages: first, the model describes the relationship between probability of failure and usage; second, the model is extended to cases of multiple types of failures; third, the model is derived for discrete usage categories or time periods with a continuous spatial representation of rail units; and finally, explanatory variables capturing geometry, maintenance, and material properties are included to explain differences in fatigue behavior among heterogeneous rail units. The model is estimated using available rail fatigue data. The modeling framework can be applied to other multitype failure behavior and to reliability problems such as vehicle breakdown.Keywords
This publication has 3 references indexed in Scilit:
- A duration model of automobile ownershipTransportation Research Part B: Methodological, 1992
- Life Tests under Competing Causes of Failure and the Theory of Competing RisksPublished by JSTOR ,1971
- A Statistical Distribution Function of Wide ApplicabilityJournal of Applied Mechanics, 1951