Sixteen cases of failure in crane rails have been analyzed and found to be caused by fatigue, which has been classified in three categories. The authors have succeeded in reproducing one of these failures in the laboratory and have found that the cracks were caused by the eccentric load at the head of the crane rail. From this they have developed a new type of crane rail in which resistance to fatigue is increased by a factor of 20 with only a 3 to 4% increase in weight compared to the existing design, i.e. a crane rail for carrying a ladle under a converter.
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