Experimental study on wear and spalling behaviors of railway wheel

The current researches of the wear and spalling behaviors of wheel/rail materials focus on the field investigation rather than the mechanism. However, it is necessary and significant for clarifying the mechanism and relationship between the wear and spalling damage of railway wheel to test and reproduce the wheel damages in laboratory. The objective of this paper is to investigate the wear and spalling damage behaviors of railway wheel using a JD-1 wheel/rail simulation facility, which consists of a small wheel serving as rolling stock wheel, and a larger wheel serving as rail. The damage process of wheel roller is explored in terms of the creep ratio, axle load, and carbon content by means of various microscopic examinations. The experimental results show that the wear volume growth of wheel roller is proved to be proportional to the increase of the creep ratio and normal load between simulating wheel and rail. The increase of carbon content of wheel material causes a linear reduction in the wear volume. The microscopic examinations indicate that the rolling wear mechanism transfers from abrasive wear to adhesive and fatigue wear with an increase of tangential friction force, which results in the initiation of fatigue crack, and then aggravates spalling damage on the wheel roller surface. The surface hardness of material depends strongly upon its carbon content. The decrease of the carbon content of wheel material may alleviate spalling damage, but can cause a significant growth in the wear volume of wheel roller. Therefore, there is a competitive relationship between the wear and spalling damage of wheel material. This research proposes an important measure for alleviating or preventing the wear and spalling damage of railway wheel material.