Analysis of wear debris in rolling contact fatigue cracks of pearlitic railway wheels
Artikel i vetenskaplig tidskrift, 2014

In the current study a severe subsurface crack network in a railway wheel has been studied and compared to typical rolling contact fatigue cracks found in the wheel tread surface. Microstructural characteristics, chemical composition and microhardness within the cracks and around crack faces were examined. While the two damage types are principally different, both showed similar crack characteristics, with short cracks branching along the main crack paths and a discontinuous sheared layer of wear debris and metallic flakes within them. Analyses of the wear debris showed that it does not originate from external contamination or being the result of corrosion primarily. Instead it has most likely been produced by shear deformation and wear mechanisms within crack faces caused by mixed-mode crack growth. Although microstructural appearance at lower magnification seemed to differ from the bulk material, at high magnification a lamellar structure was observed consisting of layers of deformed metallic flakes and particles of the base metal. Auger electron spectroscopy was used to analyze these sheared layers; higher concentration of oxygen was measured in between flakes, indicating the presence of oxides and flakes being of similar chemical composition as the base material. A possible explanation is that these layers are created due to high shear forces and friction between crack faces in the service of the wheel. With continued rolling the material being sheared by the cyclic relative motion of the crack faces disintegrates into smaller wear debris particles with concurrent oxidation.

Mixed-mode crack growth

Pearlite

Railway

Fatigue

Internal crack friction

Författare

[Person 0fdb23b3-024d-4120-9f6c-826c11540627 not found]

Chalmers, Material- och tillverkningsteknik, Materialteknologi

[Person 0679d6b4-6e15-45bc-830d-a731bfcfd875 not found]

Chalmers, Material- och tillverkningsteknik, Materialteknologi

[Person 35b9d899-a31c-4f50-ba69-b1e6e1668a6f not found]

Chalmers, Material- och tillverkningsteknik, Yt- och mikrostrukturteknik

[Person 7e40e5e2-0b6f-4860-8883-e1159c384fe7 not found]

Chalmers, Material- och tillverkningsteknik, Materialteknologi

Wear

0043-1648 (ISSN)

Vol. 314 1-2 51-56

Drivkrafter

Hållbar utveckling

Ämneskategorier

Tribologi

Teknisk mekanik

Bearbetnings-, yt- och fogningsteknik

Annan materialteknik

Farkostteknik

Styrkeområden

Transport

Materialvetenskap

Fundament

Grundläggande vetenskaper

DOI

10.1016/j.wear.2013.11.049

Mer information

Skapat

2017-10-08