Fatigue behaviour of Vossloh SKL14 tension clamps

<p>The reliability of the railway superstructure depends, among other things, on the actual fastening of the rail to the sleepers. This structure is extremely dynamically loaded. In the paper, the attention is paid to the flexible Vossloh W14 fastening system with the use of SKL14 tension clamps. These clamps are often damaged by fatigue failures, especially in curves of small radii (R &lt; 400 m). Within the research, fracture areas were identified and a fractographic analysis was performed. The analysis proved fatigue failure and, therefore, an estimation of the service life of the clamps was made. The evaluation was focused on a selected area of railway track where the fatigue-damaged clamps were found. The strain gauges were placed directly on the clamps at critical points and the obtained values were confronted with the experimentally obtained fatigue curve. Based on the presented findings, the service life of the clamps in the selected track was identified.</p>