Temperature stress has caused difficulties in structural health detection and monitoring of seamless rails. The design of detection scheme requires an accurate knowledge of the dispersive characteristics of guided waves. As a typical wave guide with complexcross section, guided waves propagating in rail track are dispersive and multi-modal.The semi-analytical finite element method, based on Hamilton′s principle and wave equation, is applied to solve the guided wave equations at any position and study guided waves propagating in rail track.The dispersion curves and corresponding vibration form should be obtained to provide a theory basis about parameter optimization in further tests.By analyzing the wave structure diagram and mode shape, it can be concluded that the waveguide section changes from total large vibration to local obvious vibration when frequency increases. Meanwhile the internal vibration patterns become complicated.Increase of temperature stress will affect the dispersion curve of guided wave propagation. Most of them show increase of phase velocity and group velocity, but the amplitude is different.

rail track; guided wave;semi-analytical finite element method(SAFE); temperature stress; dispersion characteristics