Absolutely Better Joint (ABJ) a disruptive innovation in the railway track

Andrea Bracciali and Gianluca Megna, University of Florence

PWI Lunch & Learn

Synopsis: Insulated Rail Joints (IRJs), also known as Insulated Block Joints (IBJs), remain one the critical components in the railway track. While several technique, such are holes chamfering and cold bolt expansion, were developed to prevent cracks from fishbolt holes, continuous battering inevitably lead to high loads, noise, vibrations, ballast degradation and eventually in premature life expiration. In some situations IRJs last less then a couple of years, and a number of devices were developed to check the sanity of the joint revealing debonding and overall degradation of the joint. Railhead hardening in the endpost area is applied by some railways to increase life of the joint, with arguably results.
The only way to completely avoid all these problems is to eliminate the square cut (90°) that, regardless from fishplates shape and size, results in a dip angle generating shocks at each wheel passing. Attempts to use scarf joints (mitre joints) failed because of reasons that will be discussed during the session.
A novel IRJ, called ABJ (Absolutely Better Joint) was patented and put on display at the recent Innotrans trade fair. It is based on a completely new architecture, using a pair of shallow depth switch rails and a thick baseplate to get a low inclination cut (around 3°) and an exceptionally high strength, in principle avoiding all the problems afflicting conventional IRJs.

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