Evaluation of fatigue-crack initiation at inclusions in fully pearlitic steels

The effect of inclusions in rail steels on fatigue-crack initiation was investigated. A comparative study of fatigue-crack initiation in four-point bending specimens obtained from the rail head perpendicular to the rail direction was carried out. Four rail steels with different properties and inclusion type and distribution were considered. Acoustic emission was used to detect the onset of crack initiation during fatigue testing. Following …