Wear of Rail and Tire Steels Under Rolling/Sliding Conditions

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Abstract
Prediction of the wear rate of rails on curves is becoming an increasingly important requirement as maintenance costs rise. One possible method of achieving this aim is to relate wear behavior to contact forces and creepages which can be evaluated using existing theoretical analyses of wheel/rail contact. Such a relationship can only be derived from laboratory experiments and this paper describes the results of some dry wear tests in which a rail/tire steel combination was tested over a range of creepage (1–10 percent) and contact stress (500–1300 Nmm-2) conditions. A particular feature of the experimental technique was the use of an air blast to cool and clean the specimens. It is shown that in the regime of wear most similar to that encountered in service, wear rate can best be expressed in terms of creep force, creepage and Hertzian contact area.