Study on acoustic emission properties and crack growth rate identification of rail steels under different fatigue loading conditions

•Fatigue crack acoustic emission monitoring tests have been carried out on three common rail materials.•Cumulative energy growth rate of acoustic emission can identify fatigue crack stages.•The cumulative energy growth rate of the acoustic emission can be used to quantify fatigue crack growth rate.•The acoustic emission energy growth rate index is applicable to different rail materials. The acoustic emission (AE) technique is a non-destructive real-time dynamic monitoring technique for structural health. Nonetheless, there has been a lack of research on the initiation and propagation mechanisms of fatigue cracks in rails. In this paper, the AE signal properties of fatigue crack initiation and growth are studied in three types of rail materials under different fatigue loading conditions, and a method is proposed to identify the fatigue crack growth rate. The results show that this method has good applicability for different rail materials, and the crack growth rate can be quantitatively identified based on the AE energy growth rate.