The development of a damage tolerance concept for railway components and its demonstration for a railway axle

A draft procedure for damage tolerance analysis of railway components is presented and illustrated by a case study on a railway axle. The scheme is based on the recently developed European flaw assessment procedure SINTAP, the NASGRO/ESACRACK procedure for fatigue crack extension and other documents. As the result of the worked example the crack size was quantified which has to be detected in non-destructive testing if the inspection interval is fixed by an existing maintenance plan. The resulting numbers are aimed at illustrating the method and cannot be used for industrial implementation without appropriate modification.