A Standards-Based Comparison on Fatigue Design in Railway Steel Components

Railway vehicles operate under variable amplitude dynamic loads throughout their long service lives, making fatigue a critical design consideration for welded details. As a common structural material, steel exhibits an outstanding sensitivity to fatigue phenomena when subjected to cyclic loading. Despite this issue, the sector lacks a unified accepted reference standard for fatigue assessment. This paper provides a comparative analysis of the principal design references applied to steel railway components, namely ERRI B 12/RP60, EN 12663, DVS 1612, EN 17149-3, EN 1993-1-9, and the IIW Recommendations. The comparison addresses load scenarios, stress definitions (nominal, hot-spot, and notch approaches), reference survival probabilities, and verification philosophies. Four representative welded details from a freight wagon are assessed using numerical stress histories within each framework, with verification criteria being contrasted to evaluate practical implications. The results indicate that railway-specific design codes, particularly DVS 1612 and EN 17149-3 standard, provide more tailored and accurate fatigue verification than generic codes.