Case Studies in Engineering Failure Analysis 4 (2015) 2025

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Case Studies in Engineering Failure Analysis

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/csefa

Case study

Fracture analysis of U71Mn rail ash-butt welding joint

Xuemei Yu a,b, Lichao Feng a,*, Shijie Qin c, Yuanliang Zhang a, Yiqiang He a
a

School of Mechanical Engineering, Huaihai Institute of Technology, Lianyungang 222005, China

Jiangsu Province R&D Institute of Marine Resources (Lianyungang), Lianyungang 222001, China
c
School of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, Jiangsu University of Science and Technology, Zhenjiang 212003, China
b

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Article history:
Received 13 April 2015
Received in revised form 7 May 2015
Accepted 19 May 2015
Available online 3 June 2015

This paper mainly investigates the fracture problem of U71Mn rail ash-butt welding
joint. Fracture surface morphology, microstructure and micro hardness are analyzed by
using the scanning electron microscopy (SEM/EDS), the optical microscope (OM) and the
micro Vickers hardness tester (Vickers-tester). The analysis results show that the welding
joint is fatigue fracture, and the fracture surface morphology is the cleavage fracture
characteristics. The metallographic morphology, inclusions and micro-hardness near the
fracture surface are all in the normal levels. On the other side, the free solidication
microstructure which extended from the outside to inside in the joint of the left side of the
rail web and the rail head is the crack source of the rail welding joint fatigue fracture.
Under the action of bending stress, the crack rstly generates in this area, and gradually
extended to the rail web, to nal fracture.
2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC
BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Keywords:
Rail
Welding joint
Flash-butt welding
Fracture analysis

1. Introduction
Because of convenience, high efciency, large volume and low transport cost, rail transport obtains high attention all over
the world and gets very rapid development. Since the 1960s, the rail transport was developed toward the direction of high
speed, high efciency and large-capacity. Because of the high demands for the rail transport, the safety of the rail transport
was directly threatened by the rail fracture accidents [13]. Since shock and vibration can be reduced effectively by
continuously welded rail, which can ensure the safety and stability of the rail transport, it is widely applied at present.
Continuously welded rail is laid by using the seamless welded rail. How to achieve an effective and stability welding is the
key to the continuously welded rail laying. Practice shows that the rail welding joint is a weak link in the continuously
welded rail, which directly affects the service life of the continuously welded rail. And most of the continuously welded rail
fracture comes from the fracture of welding joint [3,4]. For this reason, many researchers paid much attention to the failure
fracture causes and preventive measures of the continuously welded rail [58]. It can be seen that, improving the mechanical
properties of the welding joints, such as strength, toughness and so on, in order to avoid premature failure fracture is of vital
signicance for modern rail transport.
In this paper, the U71Mn rail which was welded by ash-butt welding, broke at the welding joint after a period of service.
The rail fracture surface was studied by analyzing the macroscopic and microscopic morphology and the chemical
composition. The cause of the rail fracture was indicated and the preventive measures were proposed.

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 518 85895330; fax: +86 518 85895326.
E-mail address: fenglichao_hit@126.com (L. Feng).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.csefa.2015.05.001
2213-2902/ 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
4.0/).

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2. Experimental results
2.1. Macroscopic inspections
Fig. 1 shows the rail fracture position and the crack propagation shape. As shown in Fig. 1, the rail fracture happens at the
ash-butt welding joint, and crack propagation shape is irregular curved.
The macroscopic morphology of the rail fracture surface is shown in Fig. 2. As shown in Fig. 2, rstly, the rail head is
slightly sunken, the rail web is rugged, and the rail bottom is relatively at. Secondly, the fracture surface of the rail is
corroded at the different degrees. At the left side of the rail web, there exists a 100 mm  10 mm oxidation corrosion area,
and a serious crescent-shaped corrosion area is found at the corner of the left side of the rail web and the rail head. And the
fracture surface is fresh at the right side of the rail web. Another oxidation corrosion area can be found at the right side of the
rail bottom. Thirdly, the fracture surface roughness in the serious corrosion area is smaller than that in the fresh fracture
surface area in the rail web. Finally, the herringbone pattern at the both sides of the rail bottom corner points to the rail web
and the radiation pattern of the rail head fracture surface also points to the rail web.
2.2. SEM observations and EDS analysis
In order to study the microstructure morphology of the rail fracture surface, the specimen is collected from the fractured
rail which is shown in Fig. 2. The specimen is cleaned by ultrasonic wave in anhydrous alcohol, and then is observed by using
the Hitachi S-570 scanning electron microscope.
Fig. 3 shows the microstructure morphology and spectral analysis results of the different areas of the rail fracture surface.
In Fig. 3(a), the serious corrosion crescent-shaped area (1# specimen) is primarily cleavage fracture microstructure
morphology, in which many secondary cracks as well as a small amount of inclusions exist. From the analysis results, it can
be seen that the inclusion mainly contains Si, Ca, C and O elements. In Fig. 3(b), at the corner of the left side of the rail web and
the rail head (2# specimen) the microstructure morphology of the rail fracture surface have the characteristics of cleavage
fracture, and free solidication structure morphology observed in the area extends from the edge welding joint to the
internal. The analysis results show that the free solidication structure mainly contains Fe element. In addition, the
observations suggest that the at area (3# specimen) at the left side of the rail web and the instant fracture area (4#
specimen) at the right side of the rail web are the cleavage fracture microstructure morphology.
2.3. Metallographic morphology observations and micro-hardness tests
After grounding and polishing, the microstructures closed to the edge of the welding joint fracture surface is observed via
ZEISS optical microscope 80-DX (MC80-DX). Fig. 4 shows the metallographic morphology of the rail welding joint and

[(Fig._1)TD$IG]

Fig. 1. Rail fracture position and crack propagation shape.

[(Fig._2)TD$IG]

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Fig. 2. Macroscopic morphology photo of the rail fracture surface.

fracture surface edge. As shown in this gure, the distance between the 1# specimen welding joint edge and the fracture
surface ranges from 3.0 mm to 5.0 mm. The distance between the 3# specimen welding joint edge and the fracture surface is
about 3.8 mm. The distance between the 4# specimen welding joint edge and the fracture surface is about 1.8 mm. However,
the welding joint morphology of the different specimens fracture surface are all normal pearlite and ferrite, and no abnormal
morphology is observed.
By using micro-hardness Vickers tester HV-5, the micro-hardness of the rail welding joint fracture surface edge of 1#, 3#
and 4# specimens are measured, respectively. During the measure process, the load is 500 g and the holding time is 10 s.
After testing 7 points of each specimen, the average is achieved. Table 1 shows the micro-hardness (Hv) of the different
fracture surface edges. From Table 1 it can be seen that the micro-hardness of the different fracture surface edges ranges from
299 to 325, which can further indicate that the morphology of the rail welding joint edge is pearlite and ferrite.

3. Analysis and discussion

From the analysis of the experimental results, it can be deduced that the failure mechanism of the rail welding
joint is fatigue cracking due to the cycle loading when the rail was applied. One thing has to be noted here is that
due to the material of the rail is made of high strength steel, therefore, it is not easy to see the beach marks in
the crack areas. The relatively large corrosion area (100 mm  10 mm) indicates that it has been contacting with the air
for a long time, so that the degree of the oxidation corrosion is large. For this reason, this is the area where the crack
happens. The results show that, the metallographic morphology, inclusions and micro-hardness near the fracture
surface are all at the normal levels. But, there is abnormal free solidication structure morphology at the corner of
the left side of the rail web and the rail head, which extended from the fracture surface to the internal. Compared
with the normal pearlite and ferrite morphology, the bonding strengths of the interfaces between the free
solidication structure and the steel matrix is relatively low, so it is easy to generate the crack under the external load.

Table 1
Micro-hardness of the rail welding joints fracture surface edges.
Specimens

1#

3#

4#

Vickers hardness (Hv)

324.1

299.1

312.7

[(Fig._3)TD$IG]

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Fig. 3. Microstructure morphology and spectral analysis of the different areas of the rail fracture surface (a) 1# specimen crescent-shaped corrosion area, (b)
2# specimen corner area of the rail web and rail head, (c) 3# specimen lighter corrosion at area, (d) 4# specimen instant fracture area of the right side of the
rail web.

It can be deduced that the crack source should be at the surface of the left side of the rail web and the rail head. The
serious corrosion crescent-shaped area also proves that the crack happens in this area at rst, and then propagates
toward the rail web, until fracture.
From the analysis results, it can be concluded that the free solidication structure defects were resulted from the
upsetting process. During this process, due to the unmatched upsetting parameters, including the upsetting length,
upsetting force, and upsetting speed, cannot guarantee the molten iron being completely extruded out, therefore, the molten
part will be remained in the matrix to form the free solidied structure. The surfaces of the free solidied structure
are relatively smooth, as a result, the interfaces between these solidied phase and the steel matrix becomes the weak
part with relatively low bonding strengths, and thus tend to form micro-cracks.

[(Fig._4)TD$IG]

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Fig. 4. Metallographic morphology of the rail welding joint and fracture surface edge (a) 1# specimen, (b) 3# specimen, (c) 4# specimen.

4. Conclusions
In the fracture surface of U71Mn rail, there exists obvious corrosion area, which indicates that the rail has been
used for a long time. The fracture feature of the rail welding joint is fatigue fracture. At the corner of the left side
of the rail web and the rail head, there is free solidication structure morphology, which is the crack source.
During the process of straightening, transporting, laying and serving, under the action of bending stress the
cracks propagate, until fracture. The free solidication structure is resulted from the unmatched upsetting length,
upsetting force and upsetting speed. Therefore, this paper proposes that the technological parameters of the
welding process should be controlled, and the welding inspection should be strengthened in order to ensure the
welding quality.

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Acknowledgements
This work was nancially supported by a Project Funded by the Jiangsu Postdoctoral Science Foundation (1402129C),
the Jiangsu Province Ocean Resource Development Research Institute Science Open Fund Project (JSIMR201317),
the Six Talent Peaks Program of Jiangsu Province (2013-ZBZZ-032), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu
Province (BK20141250) and the Lianyungang Scientic Public Service Program (JC1307).
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