Comparative Analysis of Rail Grinding Template Alignment Methods
(Room Sagamore 1)
19 Sep 17
11:30 AM
-
12:00 PM
Tracks:
AREMA Full Schedule, AREMA Technical Sessions- Track
This paper presents a numerical study involving three grinding template alignment methods commonly used or proposed for use on North American freight railroads, including centerline alignment method, Euronorm alignment method, and range alignment method. The study quantifies the results of these methods with regard to the quantity of material removed and the resulting shape of the ground rail. This analysis focuses on restoration of the desired profile with a minimum amount of material removal, which would represent the grinding objective in the rail profile grinding or preventive grinding regimes involving rail with little or no surface condition issues. The results of simulated rail grinding using a range of measured rail profiles and templates show that the variations in unground rail profile and variations in grinding template tend to overshadow the differences between the centerline and Euronorm template alignment methods. In general, the range alignment method leads to larger railhead loss than the other two methods, while showing higher conformance of ground rail profile to the grinding template. None of the three examined methods is consistently best at both evaluation categories: quantity of material removed and resulting shape of the ground rail. Selection of template alignment method should take into account such factors as grinding regime, acceptable number of grinding passes, and grinding templates used by the particular railroad.