94 PHILlPS TECHNICAL REVIEW VOLUME 20

ENCLOSED WELDING OF RAIL SECTIONS 621.791.75:625.143

One very well-Known practical consequence of more than local interest when, in quick succession,
thermal expansion is that enough space has to be inquiries reached Philips Welding Department from
left between the rails of the permanent way to four railway companies in differént countries. We
allow them to expand to the anticipated maximum believe we have found the answer to their problem in
without any danger of buckling. Now the railway the shape of an are-welding method that was in
authorities would be glad enough to do away with process of development when the inquiries were
these gaps between rails, for their elimination would made. For reasons that will become clear in a
result in an immense saving in maintenance on the moment, we refer to the method as "enclosed"
track and rolling stock. It has been estimated that welding.
/
no less than 80% of maintenance costs are attri- The investigations that eventually led to the
butable to jolts set up as trains pass over the gaps. enclosed welding method were undertaken in the
The reduction of jolting and noise would also mean following circumstances.
more comfort for the passenger. However, the Metallurgical research had established that hy-
danger of buckling has always made the gaps a drogen was frequently the cause of unsatisfactory
necessary evil. results in are-welding by the normal method. Fairly
In recent years there has becn a change for the large quantities of that element are present in the
better in this respect, thanks to improvements that deposits from normal welding electrodes, such as
have been made in most countries in the manner of mineral-coated and rutile electrodes. Basic types of
laying the rails. Rails are now fixed more firmly electrode coatings ("low-hydrogen electrodes") have
to the sleepers, the distance between sleepers has brought about a big improvement in this respect 1).
been reduced, and the gravel metalling has been A characteristic difference between basic (or
improved. These improvements have reduced the low-hydrogen) and non-basic electrodes becomes
risk ofbuckling to such an extent that it has become apparent when molten steel and liquid slag are
unnecessary to leave gaps between sections of rail. present in equilibrium. Where non-basic electrodes
For fullest advantage to be taken of this fact, have been used, the steel may contain slag inclusions
the ends of the sections should be welded together. and the slag itself may be free from metal (fig. la);
Until a few years ago, however, no satisfactory
method existed that could be employed for doing
so in situ. Non-electric methods, such as thermite
welding, do not in general give very good results.
In arc-welding, one comes up against the difficulty
that the greater part of the weld has to be made
between vertical faces, namely the cross-sections
of the web and head of the rail. This means that
only a moderate welding current can be used, other-
wise the :fillermetal will run away before it has time
to solidify. Making the weld is therefore a slow job.
Worse still, on account of the low current value too
little heat is communicated to the parent steel on a b Q3Qb3

either side of the weld, which therefore cools quickly, Fig. 1. Diagrams to show equilibrium states of molten steel and
liquid slag when (a) non-basic electrodes have been used,
becoming very hard and brittle in places owing to (b) when basic electrodes have been used. In case (a) it is
its high carbon content. The only electrical method possible for slag to be present in the steel, but not for steel
to be present in the slag; precisely the opposite applies in
of satisfactorily welding rails was resistance welding. case (b).
That method cannot of course be employed on the
track. It is in fact employed sometimes in railway when basic electrodes are employed, however, the
workshops, but the overall length of the welded weld steel is slag-free, although drops of metal may
sections is restricted by the need to transport them be present in the slag (fig. lb). (It may be observed
on a string of flats wagons. A total length of 60 that the question as to which of the two states will
yards - 200 yards in exceptional cases - is not result is not merely a matter of specific gravities.)
usually exceeded; and the problem of joining the It was clear that this particular property of basic
welded sections together still has ~o be solved.
It became clear that the whole question was of 1) J. D. Fast, Philips tech. Rev. 14, 96, 1952/53.
1958/59, No. 4 ENCLOSED WELDING 95

electrodes, which plays no part in ordinary welding, and base-plate - see view from above in fig. 2 -
might assume a practical importance: even when the thin liquid slag runs out through these openings,
working with a large weld-pool, it would he possible but the steel remains. The function of base-plate 4
to obtain a deposit essentially free from the macro- and blocks 5 and 6 is rather similar to that of the
scopic slag inclusions that do a great deal to weaken moulds ("shuttering" ) used for concrete structures-
a weld. they form a temporary enclosure for the concrete
Our investigations, referred to above, were directed ,vhile it is setting.
toward finding a practical way of exploiting this fact. These tests confirmed that, when basic electrodes
After a series of tests, we arrived at the arrange- are used, the deposited steel will he free of macro-
ment shown in fig. 2formaking a vertical butt weld. scopic inclusions if only it has remained molten for
a long enough time. That condition appears to be
satisfied by the arrangement shown in fig. 2, pro-
viding halts for electrode changing are of very
short duration (when large cross-sections are being
welded, dozens of electrodes are necessary for the
one job). There is a big difference between enclosed
welding and normal welding in layers: in the former
the whole weld actually constitutes a single layer;
in the latter case, thin layers up to the required
number are deposited one on top of the other. As a
result of this, and as a consequence, too, of the
heavier welding current, the amount of heat applied
per unit length of an enclosure-welded joint is about
seven times as much as that applied per unit length
and per layer in normal welding. In enclosed welding
-------_ ..
6 the parent steel facing the weld cools so slowly that
no appreciable hardening takes place in the transi-
~ ---.t.2mm
tion (heat-affected) zone. A second consequence of
t the rapid heating rate is that the work proceeds

L 7 I I 3 2 { quickly. The components of the enclosure can be

---r+ 2mm used over and over again, for hundreds of jobs. All
that is necessary is now and again to regrind those
5 faces that have roughened with use.
4-
-- Although the process looked promising, it was
94096 found that even low-hydrogen electrodes still con-
Fig. 2. Arrangement for enclosed welding of two steel bars 1 tained too much hydrogen for enclosed welding.
and 2. The enclosure consists of a base-plate 4 and blocks The difficulty is that the high column of molten
5 and 6, all of copper. Welding is carried out inside the
compartment' 3. The clearances through which the slag runs steel prevents the escape of the hydrogen 2) which
out are visible in the plan view. must be removed as the temperature drops. The
enclosed welding of vertical and almost vertical
Two steel bars 1 and 2 to be welded together, are joints only became a complete success once a special
arranged vertically with a gap 3 of about 15 mm ("extra low-hydrogen") electrode.had been develop-
between their edges. The bottom of the gap is ed. To prevent these new electrodes (Philips 56 R)
closed by a copper base-plate 4, and its sides are absorbing moisture in transit or during storage
blocked by copper blocks 5 and 6. A basic welding they are supplied only in airtight tins.
electrode is introduced into the compartment 3 thus The manner of welding rail sections end-to-end
formed, and the are is struck against the lower part can be divined from the simple arrangement in fig. 2.
of one of the bar ends. A thick electrode (5 to 8 However, the shape of the rail cross-section calls
mm) and a corrcspondingly heavy welding current for enclosure components that are more elaborate
(250 A to 450 A alternating current) is preferably then those for flat plates. Figs. 3a and b show the
employed. A large pool of molten steel, with liquid components required and their positioning. Welding
slag on top of it, is now formed in the compart- of rail sections begins at the foot of the rail. Here a
ment. Since narrow clearances (2 mm) have been 2) P. C. van der Willigen, De metallurgie van het lassen van
left between the workpieces and the copper blocks staal, Lassymposium Utrecht 1957, page 25 (in Dutch),
96 PHILIPS TECHNICAL REVIEW VOLUME 20

difficulty arises that always gives trouble when Suitable enclosures can equally well be designed for
massive objects are to be welded: the bulk of the other cross-sections; among the enclosures designed,
rail remains cold, and. hence initially the parent there is one for rods of circular section such as used
steel i~ the vicinity of the weld cools quickly, there- for the reinforcement of concrete.
by becoming brittle. The difficulty may be overcome A new welding method cannot be recommended
by delaying the cooling process. A simple way of unless both laboratory investigation and practical
tests have proved its soundness. As regards the for-
mer, the Philips Laboratory at Eindhoven has made
photographs of etched sections and radiographs of
numerous specimens of enclosed welds. These testify
to the absence of macroscopie inclusions (fig. 5).
In addition, the Vickers-Lips hardness meter, which
is ideallysuited to the purpose 4), has been used to
determine local variations in hardness in the weld
itself, in the transition zon~s and at places beyond
that part of the rail affected by the welding opera-
tion. Hardness curves obtained in this way are
shown in fig. 6, from which it may be seen that the
value of 300 VPN 10 5) - which is still quite
acceptable - is nowhere exceeded.
A great variety of methods are used by railway
engineers in various countries for testing the
E E' mechanical endurance of rails. All such tests have
been carried out by outside organisations, since
Philips does not possess the appropriate equipment.
Pulsation tests and tup tests are the most important
kinds.
Pulsation tests, the purpose of which is to deter-
mine fatigue strength, have been conducted by the
Netherlands Railways and British Railways, by
T.N.O.6) Delft (on behalf of Kloos and Sons'
Workshops at Kinderdijk, Holland) and also at the
Munich Technische Hochschule (on behalf of the
Bamag Works at Butzbach, Germany). In these
Fig. 3. Enclosure for welding rail sections. a) With the base- tests the operative quantity is P, the tensile stress
plate A and small blocks Band B' in position, the foot is welded.
Blocks C .and C' are then added and the lower part of the web
in the outermost fibre of the foot of the rail. A stress
is welded. b) Blocks C and C' are replaced by large blocks D P is caused to oscillate between a low minimum
and D', and the welding of the web is completed. Adding blocks
E and E' allows the head to be welded. Base-plate A and blocks value Pmin (e.g. one or two kgjmm2) and a gradually
B ... E' are of copper. F is a steel plate on which rest the increasing maximum value Pmax. The fatigue
clamps for blocks pand D'.
strength is taken to be the value of Pmax at which
fracture just fails to occur after say 1000000 pulsa-
doing so -is to heat the foot with an oxyacetylene tions have been passed (however, the number of
flame prior to welding, raising its temperature to pulsations to which the test piece is subjected may
about 4~0 °C. Fig. 4a shows the enclosure in posi- be as high as 3 X 106, 5 X 106 or even 10 X 106).
tion: foot and web of the rails have already been As always, finish-machining and polishing the weld
welded, and the welding of the head can now begin. has a good effect on the test results, since this re-
The completed weld may be seen in fig. 4b. moves surface irregularities at which fracture is
Important advantages of enclosed welding are
that no preparative machining and but little finish-
3) G. Zoethout, Het bekist lassen van spoorstaven, Lastech-
ing are required and that, as already stated; it is a niek 23, 274-277, November 1957 (in Dutch).
4) H. T. Schaap, Hardheidsmeters en hun bruikbaarheid voor
quick method. (Providing the gap in the rails is of
het onderzoeken van de overgangszones van lasnaden, Las-
the right size, the weld can be made and finished techniek 18, 27-33, 1952 (in Dutch).
off within half an hour.) Further practical details ó) VPN = Vickers' pyramid number. The figure 10 signifies
that the measurement was made with a force of 10 kg.
are given in an article 3) that has appeared elsewhere. 6) Dutch National Council for Industrial Research.
1958/59, No. 4 ENCLOSED WELDING 97

a b
Fig.4. Enclosed welding of rail sections. a) Foot and web have already been welded, and
the welding of the head can now begin. b) The completed weld.

liable to nucleate. In tests by the Netherlands Rail-

ways, and in tests by British Railways, in which
only the underside of the foot had been so finish-
machined, the welds were found to have fatigue
strengths approximately half that of the unwelded
rail. Fatigue strengths but little inferior to that of
the rail itself were found for the finished and polish-
ed specimens used for experiments at T.N.O. and
Munich. For practical purposes it is recommended
that at least the foot, the tread and the inside edge
of the head should be finished and polished.
The Netherlands Railways have carried out so-
called four-point bend tests, as illustrated in fig. 7.
To prevent the rough surface ofthe weld prejudicing
the reproducibility of the result, the load was
applied a few centimetres on either side of the joint.
Typical results appear in Table Ij a mean fatigue
strength of 19 kgjmm2 was found for these speci-
mens.

Fig. 5. Photograph of the etched cross-section of a weld

made by the enclosed method between two rail sections
(0.8 X actual size). No macroscopie slag inclusions are present.
The dark regions on either side of the weld are the transition
(heat-affected) zones.
98 PHILlPS TECHNICAL REVIEW VOLUME 20

300VPN10

.-0.
280
~ \ <,
----
_..o--'
.-;:: 0
260 __.,:r
.»>
240
/0
/ n

»-: 0 0
~ ~
'0

220
I
/0
200
~
q
I -a

lBO

260VPN10
V
240
/
-«
0
~o

1\
220 0""
---- ~
200

lBO k -- __
~ .....,_
0

-- 0

160

140
0
----..:;
r---
- -
6

93972

Fig. 6. The photograph shows a detail of the head of the weld appearing in fig. 5 (3.2 X
actual size). A row of indentations made by the Vickers-Lips hardness meter may be seen
between A and A'. The hardness values determined from the indentations and expressed
in Vickers units are plotted in curve a. Curve b corresponds to the indentations B-B'.
All values occurring in the curves are well below 300 VPN 105).
1958/59, No. 4 ENCLOSED WELDING 99

F
Table IT. Pulsation tests carried out by Munich Technische
Hochschule on two samples of finished and polished welds
between rail sections weighing 49 kg/m. Pm;o = 1 kg/mm''.

cr Pmax,
Sam- Number of
Result
A fd -?.\.4+d= 50mm 8 pie kg/mmê pulsations
---- ---

I : I =1000mm
I 22 2000000 No fracture
24 2000000 No fracture
I
I
I _X
26 2000000 No fracture
Ok-------------~r.-+--------------~

I
1 28 2000000 No fracture
I
30 2000000 No fracture
b + 31.5 I 2000000 No fracture
M 32.5 983000 Fracture
I Total 12 983 000
--- --
93965

I 25 5000000 No fracture
Fig. 7. Four-point bend test on enclosure-welded railway sec- 2 ~ 28 5000000 No fracture
tions, as conducted by the Netherlands Railways. a) The ( 31 3900000 No fracture
specimen of welded rail C rests on supports A and B (distance
ITotal13 900 000
apart I = 1 m) with the weld in the middle. A pulsating force
tF is applied at two points a distance of -Itd = 50 mm on
either side of the weld; the weld has not been finished or
polished, but at the points where the forces are applied the inches until fracture occurred. The distance between
steel has its original smooth surface. b) Bending moment M as
a function of length x along the specimen. Between the points
the two supports on which the test object rested
of application of the load the bending moment has a uniform was 1.20 m, and the rails weighed about 54 kg per
maximum value of Mruux = tF(I-d).
metre. Eight out of ten welds fractured at 5.33
ton. metres, the remaining two at 7.00 ton. metres.
Tests on behalf of British Railways, carried out in In their laboratory at Moulin-Neuf, the S.N.C.F.
the Derby laboratory of the British Transport carried out six tup tests whereby a tup of 1000 kg
Commission, gave comparable results.
Table 11 contains the results of tests on two
finished and polished weld samples. The tests were
carried out at the Institute for Rail and Road
Construction of Munich Technische Hochschule,
under the direction of Prof. Meier. The results agree
fairly well with those of corresponding tests done
by T_N_O_,in which small rods cut out of the foot
of the weld sample constituted the test objects.
Tup tests have been conducted by the railway
authorities III England (British Railways) and
France (S.N.C.F.).
The British Railways tests, carried out in their
laboratory at Redbridge, consisted in allowing a
tup of It tons (1270 kg) to fall on the weld from
a height that was progressively increased by 6

Table I. Results of pulsation tests carried out by the Nether-

lands Railways on six welds between rail sections, only the
foot of the weld having been finish-machined. The rails weigh-
ed 46 kg per metre. Pmin = 2 kg/mm2.

Pmax, Number of
Result
kg/mm2 pulsations

17 2700000 No fractnre
18 2760000 No fractnre
19 3 160 000 No fracture
20 2170000 Fracture
Fig. 8. Switchpoints, welded at hoth ends to normal rail sec-
20 2430000 Fracture tions. The joints are indicated by arrows. The section between
20 3200000 Fracture the welds is milled out of a single steel block ("monoblock"
construction).
100 PHILlPS TECHNICAL REVIEW VOLUME 20

was dropped on the weld from a height of 6 m and practice: some 90 switchpoints of the so-called
the work done in causing fracture was recorded "monoblock" type were' welded to normal lengths
automatically. Here the distance between the sup- of rail (fig. 8). These are now in use in the mar-
ports was 0.70 m and the rails were of the U33 shalling yard of the IJmuiden Blast Furnaces.
type. The results obtained were 4.37, 3.21, 3.165, Since then, welding by the new method has been
4.83, 1.51 and 5.23 ton.metres. (They cannot be done on a large scale in a number of other shunting
compared with the English results on account of yards in the Netherlands (Rotterdam and Eind-
the quite different conditions under which the tests hoven) and Belgium (Beringen). Having had good
were performed.) results with enclosed welding in a shunting yard
We may conclude with some notes on the actual near Toten, British Railways are now using the
employment of enclosed welding on the railways. procèss on both branch and main lines. A number
The workshops of K100s en Zonen at Kinderdijk, of gangs are proceeding with this work daily, and
to which reference has already been made, were the have already made thousands of welds:
first to put the enclosed welding of rail sections into G. ZOETHOUT.