How to Maintain Rail Clip in Optimal State?

Rail fastening system is used to fix the rails to the railway sleepers. The rail fastening system contains many rail fasteners like the railroad spike, rail pad, rail tie plate, rail clip and so on. All of these fasteners make up of a fastening system to guarantee the stability of the railway.  The fastening clip has a big role in the fastening system. As a key component, the fastening clip has big role in the fastening system.

According to the observation of the rail system, it is found that the rail clip has a big effect on strengthening the rail structure and improving the railway stability. Rail clip as a critical component, it can produce a buckle pressure to the railway and the pressure can maintain the integrity of steel rails as far as possible. Rail clips apply to the standard railway tangent and R>=300m railway in general.

With the rail clip be widely used, there are some issues during the use of the process. Crack, looseness, corrosion, these issues make the rail clip cannot keep the best state. How to protect the rail clip keep the best state?

Installation 

First, we need to know what the best state of the rail clip is. According to the purpose of the design, the rail clip controls the tightening of the railroad spike based on the second touch principle. When the rail clips at the best state, the torque is 98.07N.m in general. What’s more, the torque should smaller than 147.10N.m. In order to verify the rail clips in use reach the standard or not, we take 500 samples from five working area. The result suggests that 375 samples reach the standard which accounted for 75%; 125 samples do not reach the standard, which almost accounted for 25%.

In addition, we find that the torque of these substandard rail clips is larger than others. In order to figure out the reason, we make a study by disintegrating some samples. We found three main reasons:

The rail screw has been corroded so that the rail nut cannot be fastened successfully. When changing the new rail nut, the part has been corroded will cause the torque increased.   

The anchorage of the rail screw is on the high side that will cause the rail nut cannot be fastened. If the rail screws anchorage is higher than the normal that will cause short of the rail screw available length.

Due to the workers are not familiar with the rail clip performance and the maintaining criterion, some workers use the Long handle wrench to fasten the rail nut, which will cause the torque increased and increase the load on the rail clip.

So how to judge the rail clip is in the best state or not? We can inspect the rail clip state by using the feeler gauge. In order to maintain the rail clip, we regard the rail screw torque as a measure to inspect the rail clip state. So there is a parameter for the rail screw. When the rail clips are at the normal working state, the torque should be between 78.45N.m---196.13N.m.

Storage 

In principle, the storage of the rail clip should locate in the clean, dry, ventilated, and convenient place. Due to there are many material rail clips, you must pay more attention to it. For example, the E rail clip should put into the room or not in the open air; ensuring the rail clip keep away from the acid and organic solvent. The temperature of the room should lower than 60 degrees centigrade.

Q&A

In term of the frequently asked question, as a rail clip manufacturer, AGICO makes a list of the questions and solutions.        

Q：Rail clip is not at the right place，does it will have influence?
A: if the rail clip is not at the right place, it will reduce the service life and change the shape.
So we need to pay attention to that the rail clip should install at the place where far away to the Embedded iron tower 8~10mm.
 
Q：How to solve the mental rail clips be corroded?
A: Firstly, we need to know that will cause the rail screw torque increased. Pay more attention to the procedure of transforming and installing. Do not disassemble repeatedly. Oiling and painting the corrosion site in time.
 
Q：The gap between rail gauge block and steel rail is more than 1mm, is that right?
A: It will influence the rail gauge then threaten the train safety. You need to change the suitable rail gauge block at once.
 

Q：The gap between the rail clip central front jaw and the rail insulator is greater than 0.5mm, how to solve it?

A: if the gap is greater than 0.5mm, the torque of the rail clip is going to much smaller than the standard rail clip and the crimping force will be reduced. So please fasten the rail clip to ensure the gap is smaller than 0.5mm.
 
We just list some typical questions to answer. If you have other questions, you can contact us! We would like to help you solve your questions.