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In strong wind area, wind vibration on key railway catenary components may lead to safety hidden danger like fatigue failures. In this work, a load identification approach was proposed by decoupling the wind-induced suspension attitude to acquire the hard-to-get environmental wind load and evaluate the catenary fatigue damage on railway catenary. In theoretical modeling, mechanical relation between wind load and registration displacement is formulated in pure lateral and vertical loading by finite element analysis. Wind load is identified via suspension attitude decoupling into displacement under individual load. Nodal forces, as the external load acting on catenary connections between supporting beams, are further correlated with the identified wind load to calculate the structural stress of catenary components. In experiment, visual detection is used to measure the wind-induced attitude of catenary suspension in wind area, where maximum wind speed climbs up to 41 m/s. Experimental results are transferred into wind loads and nodal forces using the proposed model. Stress spectra and fatigue damage evaluation of connection components are carried out adopting the rain-flow counting method and damage accumulation rule. Research outcome certifies that the proposed methodology provides an effective means to evaluate the fatigue behavior of railway catenary in wind area.

The equipment cabins of high‐speed trains encountered alternating pressure loads during operation. A fatigue evaluation methodology based on sub‐zone aerodynamic loading was proposed. Theoretical model was given between pressure load at each zone and the accompanying six structural stress components. Stress recovery matrix was formulated by finite element analysis (FEA) in sub‐zone loading cases to relate the stress to the measured pressure loads. Vehicle test gathered the pressure time‐history data of cabin sub‐zones at the head car in different ambient conditions, from which the two‐dimensional stress spectrum was derived by rain‐flow counting. The fatigue damage of welds was then assessed utilizing the Miner's and Corten Dolan's rules, yielding maximum equivalent damages of 0.72 and 0.23, respectively. The structural fatigue damage under high environmental wind conditions was 1–3 times greater than in calm weather. Nonetheless, the fatigue damage incurred by the metal matrix was significantly lower, demonstrating a substantial safety margin. Highlights: Proposed a sub‐zone aerodynamic load‐stress conversion model.Welds exhibit higher aerodynamic fatigue damage than metal matrix.Strong winds heighten fatigue damage in the equipment cabin of high‐speed trains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]