Issue 9

Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 9 (2009) Notiziario IGF 163 “Damage tolerance of TGV axles” F. Cocheteaux, SNCF, France “DEUFRAKO: Effect of specimen geometry on fatigue crack growth rates in an A4T material” I. Varfolomeyev, M. Burdack, M. Luke - IWM, Germany “WIDEM: Estimation of Load spectra for integrity assessment of an high speed train wheelset” S. Bruni, F. Braghin, F. Resta - PoliMi, Italy S. Cervello - Lucchini RS, Italy M. Grosse-Hovest – LBF, Germany “ The effect of steady torsion on small crack initiation and propagation under rotating bending: multiaxial fatigue and mixed-mode cracking” M. de Freitas, Instituto Superior Técnico, Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal “WIDEM: Damage tolerance and design review for the axles of an high speed train” S. Beretta, M. Carboni - PoliMi, Italy J. Rudlin, L. Wei - TWI, UK "Numerical Investigations on an Engineering Approach for Analysis of Fretting Fatigue in Press-Fits" T. Bruder, L. Voigt – LBF, Germany “DEUFRAKO: Fatigue crack growth behaviour in railway axle materials under constant and variable amplitude loading” M. Luke, M. Burdack, I. Varfolomeyev, IWM, Germany “Longitudinal Cracking of Railway Axles” N. Gubeljac - University of Maribor, Slovenia “Investigations on fatigue crack growth under variable amplitude loading in wheelset axles” H. Richard, M. Sander – University of Paderborn, Germany "An effect of strength of railway axle steels on fatigue resistance under press fitting" V. Linhart, I. Černý, SVUM, Czech The working days were closed by two round table discussions: - “Determination of UT POD curves for railway axles” by M. Carboni – PoliMI, Italy; - “SIF solutions in railway axles” by M. Madia – PoliMi, Italy. Remarks The workshop was very successful; it provided an excellent opportunity for the dissemination of the EU 6 th Framework project WIDEM results. It also brought together the leading European intellectual experts in railway wheelsets for a review of contemporary work which, clearly, was state of the art. The workshop demonstrated that there is a high level of interest in the subject which has a very high level of economic value to industry. As a consequence industry is very enthusiastic in its support for academic research in the problem fundamentals. In addition to the important WIDEM work, significant new developments were unveiled during the workshop. There is a great deal of attention focussed on to contemporary problem areas of railway axle design. Although not linked to specific axle designs, difficulties in dealing with crack initiation in axle radius transitions received a great deal of attention. Prof. Stefano Beretta of PoliMi led presentations of the WIDEM work. The WIDEM project, because of technical difficulties in the experimental work, was delayed and did not achieve all of its ambitious objectives. Nonetheless, important progress has been made in understanding the crack initiation problems referred to above, predicting crack growth rates and in understanding the probability of detecting cracks in railway axles. The progress made by WIDEM, together with other presented activities at the workshop, suggests that a complete understanding of all of the engineering fundamentals of the structural integrity may soon be achieved. P ROSSIME ATTIVITA ’ IGF Sessione tematica durante il prossimo convegno AIAS (Associazione Italiana Analisi Sollecitazioni; Torino dal 9 all’11 settembre 2009) dal titolo “ Integrità Strutturale ”. Il coordinatore di questa sessione sarà il prof. Franco Furgiuele, cui potete far riferimento per aderire (furgiuele@unical.it) ; http://www.aiasonline.org/default.asp