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• A first study of the effect of full creepage on RCF crack growth behaviour. • Predicted crack growth directions show a good agreement with field observation. • Lateral and spin creepages can significantly affect K II and K III evolutions. • Increase in spin creepage is more detrimental to RCF crack driving force. In heavy-haul railway systems, the experience of high traction force of rails in curved tracks significantly accelerates the rolling contact fatigue crack growth. The overall level of traction force and its detailed distribution within a contact patch can be determined by the extent of wheel slips in different directions, also referred to as creepage. However, few studies have focused on quantifying the influence of creepage on rolling contact fatigue crack growth behaviour. In this paper, a numerical method is proposed to investigate the non-proportional mixed-mode rolling contact fatigue crack growth behaviour in the presence of severe longitudinal, lateral and spin creepages. To partially validate the proposed numerical method, the predicted crack growth directions on the rail surface are compared with the cracking patterns obtained from field observations. A parametric study is also conducted to further quantify the influence of different creepage combinations on the evolution of stress intensity factors at the crack front. Results show that both lateral and spin creepages can significantly affect the phase and maximum magnitude of K II and K III during one complete loading cycle. Moreover, the increase of spin creepage is found to have a more detrimental effect on overall RCF crack driving force than the increase of the other two creepage components. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The FaStrip algorithm is modified to estimate elastic-plastic traction distribution. • Softened zones of rail welds experience the highest ratcheting strain rate. • Ratcheting strain rates in the sampled 2000 m radius curved track are higher than those in the sampled tangent track. • The RCF initiation location is highly dependent on the magnitude and pattern of traction distribution. Ratcheting at the rail heads due to cyclic rolling contact stresses is often observed in heavy haul railways, especially when there are large steering forces developed in low-radius curves. Additionally, ratcheting behaviour can be exacerbated when associated with material strength loss in the heat affected zones of rail welds. However, the numerical evaluation of this failure mode requires a sophisticated representation of elastic–plastic contact pressures and traction distributions, which, to the best of the authors' knowledge, cannot be directly measured by any existing tools. In this paper, in order to accurately evaluate the ratcheting performance at rail welds in curved tracks, attempts were conducted to modify the FaStrip algorithm to analytically estimate the traction distributions based on contact pressures and creepages obtained from static finite element analysis and multi-body dynamic simulations, respectively. Cyclic rolling contact was then simulated by repeatedly applying contact pressure and traction on the rail surface consisting of both the rail weld and the parent rail regions. The weld region was divided into 23 sub-zones in the rolling direction to represent the material inhomogeneity within the heat affected zones. Cases on a 2000 m radius curved track and a tangent track were studied for comparison. It was found that the ratcheting strain rate in curved tracks can be significantly elevated due to the higher magnitude of traction, and the location of the elements with the highest ratcheting strain rate was dependent on the traction distribution patterns. The proposed method provides a general tool for predicting rolling contact fatigue initiation life and location, which will benefit the maintenance efficiency of heavy haul rail welds in curved track. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]