TY - JOUR A1 - Zerbst, Uwe A1 - Beretta, S. A1 - Köhler, G. A1 - Lawton, A. A1 - Vormwald, M. A1 - Beier, H.T. A1 - Klinger, Christian A1 - Cerný, I. A1 - Rudlin, J. A1 - Heckel, Thomas A1 - Klingbeil, Dietmar T1 - Safe life and damage tolerance aspects of railway axles - A review N2 - The paper gives an overview on safe life and damage tolerance methods applied to railway axles. It describes failure scenarios due to fatigue crack initiation and propagation. Besides common aspects of design, specific features such as corrosion and impact damage from flying ballast are discussed which may reduce the fatigue strength of axles during service. Potential effects of non-metallic inclusions from the steel manufacturing process are addressed in the context of the very high number of loading cycles railway axles are designed for. With respect to damage tolerance general lines of fracture mechanics residual lifetime analyses are introduced. More specific discussion is provided on aspects such as the threshold value of fatigue crack propagation and reliability aspects of non-destructive inspection. KW - Railway axle KW - Safe life design KW - Damage tolerance KW - Fatigue strength KW - Fatigue crack propagation KW - Inspection intervals PY - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engfracmech.2012.09.029 SN - 0013-7944 SN - 1873-7315 VL - 98 SP - 214 EP - 271 PB - Elsevier Science CY - Kidlington AN - OPUS4-27779 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -