Experimental study on rolling contact fatigue of railway wheel

철도차량 차륜의 구름접촉피로의 실험적 연구

Railway wheels and axles belong to the most critical components in railway vehicles. The service conditions of railway vehicles became more severe in recent years due to the increase of speed. Therefore, a more precise evaluation of wheel/set life and safety has been requested. One of the major reasons of railway wheel damage is a contact zone failure by wheel/rail contact. In this paper, we conducted a rolling contact fatigue test for wheels using a specimen of wheel/rail. the behavior of hardeness and residual stress below the contact surface of the test pieces in the fatigue process were analyzed. Finally, the relation between fatigue life and contact pressure was obtained.