Project Description
Project Overview: The most efficient and precise way to join steel rail together is through flash butt welding. It offers a filler less and solid-state solution to joining rail together that provides numerous advantages to mechanical-joining. The weld is the weakest part of the rail, and frequently is the root of failure when it occurs. After welding, the weld is accompanied by the HAZ (heat affected zone), which is a softened thermally affected region of the metal that didn’t get hot enough to melt. The HAZ is a narrow and softened region that differs in hardness from the base rail significantly. The solution to this problem our group will investigate is post-weld heat treatment to harden the softened HAZ. The two methods proposed are induction heating and TIG welding. For induction heating, two coil geometries will be built and tested with soft magnetic composites to optimize the energy transfer into the weld. Regarding TIG welding, varying electrode compositions, electrode tip geometries, and the number of overlay passes will be tested. The deliverables of this project will be a technical report detailing the testing results of both methods used and a technical presentation offering a recommendation for the best heat treatment process to mitigate the HAZ of flash butt welded rail.
Client: Jeremy Cronkhite, Steel Dynamics, Inc., Structural and Rail Division
Advisor(s): Todd Bashford, Doug Blomeke, Steel Dynamics, Inc.
Team: Roman Palvanov, palvanov@wisc.edu (Leader)
Stephen Slana, sslana@wisc.edu (Technical Engineer)
William Mueting, mueting@wisc.edu (Accountant, Budget)
Evan Lallensack, elallensack@wisc.edu (Communicator)
