| Abstract | The research objective of the wear and fatigue model is to identify the theoretical and practical measures aimed at the extension of rail life. The research efforts, carried out jointly by the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada and the University of Rhode Island (URI), have concentrated that at the NRC, on studies of mechanical, metallurgical and rheological parameters influence the wear and contact fatigue processes; while the URI has set out to determine the basic fatigue properties of rail steels in a compressive, biaxial stress environment.
This report is concerned with segments of the overall research program completed at NRC during the 1984/85 contract period and consists of a collection of two papers and one report. The first paper deals with the wear rate and fatigue crack initiation and growth measurements carried out on several commercial and experimental pearlitic rail steels. The second paper is concerned with the wear and contact fatigue properties of pearlitic, bainitic and tempered martensite steels at hardness levels of HRC 38, 42 and 45. The findings of an electron microscope study of the white etching phase, found in rail wear debris and on the rail surface, forms the final portion of this report. |
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