Weathering Steel for Maglev Guideway Construction: Preliminary Temperature Analysis

This study investigates the possibility of using weathering steel to construct a guideway for a magnetically levitated train. The thermal behavior of weathering steel is compared to that of steel plates with other coatings and the temperature gradients monitored on a full-size weathered girder are analyzed. The findings of this report indicate that a guideway constructed of weathering steel will have a thermal behavior similar that of a blackbody and may experience large temperature gradients under certain weather conditions. Some of the material properties needed to use a finite element program to predict the temperature deflections of a weathering steel guideway are also described.