The fatigue behaviour of cracks at the foot region of a rail subjected to bending load has been investigated.
Depending on the position of initiation of a small semi-elliptical surface crack in a rail, the crack front changes shape during propagation to failure due to the large variation of the stress intensity factor from point to point round the
crack front due to differences in the local stress field as each point round the crack front lies at different distances
from the neutral axis of the rail. This condition implies a variable crack growth rate that transforms the crack front
shape during fatigue crack propagation. SIF values have been estimated by means of both the finite element method
and analytical solutions derived for a semi-elliptical crack in a finite rectangular cross-section beam. The SIF value
predictions obtained with the two methods show good agreement suggesting that the analytical solutions can be used
for a rapid assessment of the severity of a flaw in a rail. A predictive model for crack growth has been derived for an
initial small crack at an initiation point at the foot/web corner of a rail tested under four point bending fatigue in the
laboratory, showing a reasonably good prediction of both the shape and size of the crack at failure when compared
with experiment.