Study on wear characteristics and authorized limits of switch rails of high-speed turnout

Purpose-It is quite universal for high-speed turnouts to be exposed to the wear of the stock rail of the switch rail during the service process.The wear will cause the change of railhead profile and the relative positions of the switch rail and the stock rail,which will directly affect the wheel-rail contact state and wheel load transition when a train passes the turnout and will further impose serious impacts on the safety and stability of train operation.The purpose of this paper is to provide suggestions for wear management of high-speed turnout.Design/methodology/approach-The actual wear characteristics of switch rails of high-speed turnouts in different guiding directions were studied based on the monitoring results on site;the authorized wear limits for the switch rails of high-speed turnout were studied through derailment risk analysis and switch rail strength analysis.Findings-The results show that:the major factor for the service life of a curved switch rail is the lateral wear.The wear characteristics of the curved switch rail of a facing turnout are significantly different from those of a trailing turnout.To be specific,the lateral wear of the curved switch rail mainly occurs in the narrower section at its front end for a trailing turnout,but in the wider section at its rear end when for a facing turnout.The maximum lateral wear of a dismounted switch rail from a trailing turnout is found on the 15-mm wide section and is 3.9 mm,which does not reach the specified limit of 6 mm.For comparison,the lateral wear of a dismounted switch rail from a facing turnout is found from the 35-mm wide section to the full-width section and is greater than 7.5 mm,which exceeds the specified limit.Based on this,in addition to meeting the requirements of maintenance rules,the allowed wear of switch rails of high-speed turnout shall be so that the dangerous area with a tangent angle of wheel profile smaller than 43.68 will not contact the switch rail when the wheel is lifted by 2 mm.Accordingly,the lateral wear limit at the 5-mm wide section of the curved switch rail shall be reduced from 6 mm(as specified)to 3.5 mm.Originality/value-The work in this paper is of reference significance to the research on the development law of rail wear in high-speed turnout area and the formulation of relevant standards.

Friction and Wear Characteristics of Brush Plating Ni/nano-Al2O3 Composite Coating under Sand-Containing Oil

Ni-matrix composite coating containing AI2O3 nano-particles is prepared by brush plating. The effects of the nano-particles on the microstructure, microhardness and tribological properties of the composite coating under the lubrication of a diesel oil containing sand are investigated. The results show that the microstructure of the composite coating is finer than that of the pure nickel coating due to the codeposition of the nano-particles. When the nano-particle concentration in the electroplating bath reaches 20 g/L, the microhardness, and wear resistance of the composite coating is as much as 1.6 times and 1.3-2.5 times of those of the pure nickel coating respectively. The main hardening mechanism of the composite coating is superfine crystal grain strengthening and dispersion strengthening. The composite coating is characterized by scuffing as it slides against Si3N4 under the present test conditions.

Wear Characteristics of the Nuclear Control Rod Drive Mechanism(CRDM)Movable Latch Serviced in High Temperature Water

The current research of nuclear control rod drive mechanism(CRDM)movable latch only makes a simple measurement of wear mass.The wear volume and difference in various claw surfaces are ignored and the degradation mechanism of each claw surface is not clear.In this paper,a detailed degradation analysis was carried out on each claw surface of movable latch combined with wear result and worn morphology.Results indicate that the boundary of carbide is preferred for corrosion because carbide presents a nobler Volta potential compared to the metal matrix or boundary region.Due to the oscillation of drive shaft between the claw surfaces of movable latch,the dominant wear mechanism on the upper surface of claw(USC)and lower surface of claw(LSC)is plastic deformation caused by impact wear.Mechanical impact wear will cause the fragmentation of carbides because of the high hardness and low ductility of carbides.Corrosion promotes the broken carbides to fall off from the metal matrix.The generated fine carbides(abrasive particles)cause extra abrasive wear on USC when the movable brings the drive shaft upward or downward.As a result,USC has a higher wear volume than LSC.This research proposes a method to evaluate the wear on the whole movable latches using a 3D full-size scanner.

Abrasive Wear Characteristics of Carbon and Low Alloy Steels for Better Performance of Farm Implements

The low stress abrasion behaviours of heat treated mild, medium carbon and high C - low Cr steels, which are generally used in making farm implements, have been investigated. The simple heat treatment greatly improves the hardness, tensile strength and abrasion resistance of medium carbon and high C - low Cr steels. The results indicate that the material removal during abrasion is controlled by a number of factors, such as hardness, chemical composition, microstructure and heat treatment conditions. The conclusion is that the heat treated high C - low Cr steel and mild steel carburized by using coaltar pitch provide the best hardness and abrasion resistance and thus appear to be the most suitable materials for making agricultural tools.

Wear characteristics and prediction of wheel profiles in high-speed trains

Wheel/rail relationship is a fundamental problem of railway system. Wear of wheel profiles has great effect on vehicle performance. Thus, it is important not just for the analysis of wear characteristics but for its prediction. Actual wheel profiles of the high-speed trains on service were measured in the high-speed line and the wear characteristics were analyzed which came to the following results. The wear location was centralized from-15 mm to 25 mm. The maximum wear value appeared at the area of 5 mm from tread center far from wheel flange and it was less than 1.5 mm. Then, wheel wear was fitted to get the polynomial functions on different locations and operation mileages. A binary numerical prediction model was raised to predict wheel wear. The prediction model was proved by vehicle system dynamics and wheel/rail contact geometry. The results show that the prediction model can reflect wear characteristics of measured profiles and vehicle performances.

Wear Characteristics of Functionally Graded Tubes Reinforced with Silicon Carbide and Alumina: A Comparative Study

In the current study,an effort has been taken to manufacture and compare the characteristics of functionally graded tubes. Two samples have been produced with a commercially pure aluminium matrix reinforced by 10%(in weight) SiC and Al_(2)O_(3)with a 16 μm average size via horizontal centrifugal casting. In addition to microstructure analysis,the mechanical and wear characteristics have been investigated across the thickness of the produced tubes.The results showed that the addition of SiC and Al_(2)O_(3)particles relative to the unreinforced matrix(pure Al)significantly enhance the mechanical properties and wear resistance of the produced tubes. Thus,these tubes are the best choice for automobile applications.

Wear Characteristics of Zirconia Toughened Ceramic Drawing Dies

Wear resistance of several zirconia toughened ceramics in comparison with a metal-ceramic Co-WC has been studied in drawing wire field test. Result indicates that the harder the ceramic die, the longer the service life. Excellent wear resistance of ceramic die is obtained with a very high hardness (19 GPa). The service life is nearly three times that of Co-WC die. SEM observation on wear surfaces showed that material removal is mainly caused by plastic flow and ploughing process. But when the ceramic is composed of zirconia, alumina and some titanium carbide, micro-chipping and tribochemical reaction take place, and wear rate increases. Wear and friction induced martensite was detected by XRD. The T-M (tetragonal to monoclinic) phase transformation has a contribution to inhibiting microfracture.

Microstructure and Wear Characteristics of Al-4.5Cu-5Pb Alloy

Al-4. 5Cu-5Pb alloy was prepared by sand and chill casting. The same alloy was also spray deposited at a gas pressure of 1.6 MPa. The microstructural features exhibit a coarse to fine dendritic morphology for sand and chill cast alloys. Equiaxed grains were observed for spray formed alloys. Wear testing employing a pin-on-disc type set-up, reveals considerably lower wear of spray deposited alloy compared to that of chill and sand cast alloys. The morphological features of wear track on specimen and debris indicated a mixed oxidative-cum-adhesive wear mechanisms for these alloys tested in the present investigation. (Edited author abstract) 36 Refs.

Effects of Cr Content and Annealing Temperature on Microstructure and Wear Characteristics of Cast Ausferrite Nodular Iron

The effects of Cr content and annealing temperature on abrasive wear characteristics of cast ausferrite nodular iron were investigated with Suga type abrasive wear tester. The surface morphology and Vickers hardness of the tested samples were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy（SEM）, digital microscope and Vickers hardness tester. The results show that the cast ausferrite nodular iron could be obtained by alloying with Cr in the as-cast ductile cast iron and permanent mold casting, and the bainite content in the matrix increased with increasing Cr content. However, the decomposition of bainite took place during annealing at 500 °C to 800 °C; especially, at 800 °C, the bainite transformed into a mixture of fine lamellar pearlite and ferrite matrix structure. The wear loss of specimens was reduced with increasing Cr content in the cast ausferrite nodular iron. The wear loss of the sample cast ausferrite nodular iron with 0.4mass% Cr is the least. The wear loss began to increase while the Cr content is 0.6mass%. The wear loss of annealed ductile irons at different annealing temperatures was higher than that of as-cast samples. During the abrasive wear, the shear stress transformed austenite to martensite, and the hardness of specimens increased and the wear resistance of as-cast ductile cast iron was improved.

Experimental Study on Wear Performance and Oil Film Characteristics of Surface Textured Cylinder Liner in Marine Diesel Engine

It is of a vital importance to reduce the frictional losses in marine diesel engines. Advanced surface textures have provided an e ective solution to friction performance of rubbing pairs due to the rapid development of surface engineering techniques. However,the mechanisms through which textured patterns and texturing methods prove beneficial remains unclear. To address this issue,the tribological system of the cylinder liner?piston ring(CLPR) is investigated in this work. Two types of surface textures(Micro concave,Micro V?groove) are processed on the cylinder specimen using di erent processing methods. Comparative study on the friction coe cients,worn surface texture features and oil film characteristics are performed. The results demonstrate that the processing method of surface texture a ect the performance of the CLPR pairs under the specific testing conditions. In addition the micro V?groove processed by CNCPM is more favorable for improving the wear performances at the low load,while the micro?con?cave processed by CE is more favorable for improving the wear performances at the high load. These findings are in helping to understand the e ect of surface texture on wear performance of CLPR.

Intelligent Identification of Wear Mechanism via On-line Ferrograph Images

Condition based maintenance（CBM） issues a new challenge of real-time monitoring for machine health maintenance. Wear state monitoring becomes the bottle-neck of CBM due to the lack of on-line information acquiring means. The wear mechanism judgment with characteristic wear debris has been widely adopted in off-line wear analysis; however, on-line wear mechanism characterization remains a big problem. In this paper, the wear mechanism identification via on-line ferrograph images is studied. To obtain isolated wear debris in an on-line ferrograph image, the deposition mechanism of wear debris in on-line ferrograph sensor is studied. The study result shows wear debris chain is the main morphology due to local magnetic field around the deposited wear debris. Accordingly, an improved sampling route for on-line wear debris deposition is designed with focus on the self-adjustment deposition time. As a result, isolated wear debris can be obtained in an on-line image, which facilitates the feature extraction of characteristic wear debris. By referring to the knowledge of analytical ferrograph, four dimensionless morphological features, including equivalent dimension, length-width ratio, shape factor, and contour fractal dimension of characteristic wear debris are extracted for distinguishing four typical wear mechanisms including normal, cutting, fatigue, and severe sliding wear. Furthermore, a feed-forward neural network is adopted to construct an automatic wear mechanism identification model. By training with the samples from analytical ferrograph, the model might identify some typical characteristic wear debris in an on-line ferrograph image. This paper performs a meaningful exploratory for on-line wear mechanism analysis, and the obtained results will provide a feasible way for on-line wear state monitoring.

Shear sliding of rough-walled fracture surfaces under unloading normal stress

Through high-precision engraving,self-affine sandstone joint surfaces with various joint roughness coefficients(JRC=3.21e12.16)were replicated and the shear sliding tests under unloading normal stress were conducted regarding various initial normal stresses(1e7 MPa)and numbers of shearing cycles(1 e5).The peak shear stress of fractures decreased with shear cycles due to progressively smooth surface morphologies,while increased with both JRC and initial normal stress and could be verified using the nonlinear Barton-Bandis failure criterion.The joint friction angle of fractures exponentially increased by 62.22%e64.87%with JRC while decreased by 22.1%e24.85%with shearing cycles.After unloading normal stress,the sliding initiation time of fractures increased with both JRC and initial normal stress due to more tortuous fracture morphologies and enhanced shearing resistance capacity.The surface resistance index(SRI)of fractures decreased by 4.35%e32.02%with increasing shearing cycles due to a more significant reduction of sliding initiation shear stress than that for sliding initiation normal stress,but increased by a factor of 0.41e1.64 with JRC.After sliding initiation,the shear displacement of fractures showed an increase in power function.By defining a sliding rate threshold of 5105 m/s,transition from“quasi-static”to“dynamic”sliding of fractures was identified,and the increase of sliding acceleration steepened with JRC while slowed down with shearing cycles.The normal displacement experienced a slight increase before shear sliding due to deformation recovery as the unloading stress was unloaded,and then enhanced shear dilation after sliding initiation due to climbing effects of surface asperities.Dilation was positively related to the shear sliding velocity of fractures.Wear characteristics of the fracture surfaces after shearing failure were evaluated using binary calculation,indicating an increasing shear area ratio by 45.24%e91.02%with normal stress.

Effects of titanium addition on structural, mechanical, tribological, and corrosion properties of Al-25Zn-3Cu and Al-25Zn-3Cu-3Si alloys

To investigate the effect of grain refinement on the material properties of recently developed Al-25 Zn-3 Cu based alloys,Al-25 Zn-3 Cu,Al-25 Zn-3 Cu-0.01 Ti,Al-25 Zn-3 Cu-3 Si and Al-25 Zn-3 Cu-3 Si-0.01 Ti alloys were produced by permanent mold casting method.Microstructures of the alloys were examined by SEM.Hardness and mechanical properties of the alloys were determined by Brinell method and tensile tests,respectively.Tribological characteristics of the alloys were investigated by a ball-on-disc type test machine.Corrosion properties of the alloys were examined by an electrochemical corrosion experimental setup.It was observed that microstructure of the ternary A1-25 Zn-3 Cu alloy consisted ofα,α+ηandθ(Al2Cu)phases.It was also observed that the addition of 3 wt.%Si to A1-25Zn-3Cu alloy resulted in the formation of silicon particles in its microstructure.The addition of 0.01 wt.%Ti to the Al-25Zn-3Cu and Al-25 Zn-3 Cu-3 Si alloys caused a decrement in grain size by approximately 20%and 39%and an increment in hardness from HRB 130 to 137 and from HRB 141 to 156,respectively.Yield strengths of these alloys increased from 278 to 297 MPa and from 320 to 336 MPa while their tensile strengths increased from 317 to 340 MPa and from 334 to 352 MPa.Wear resistance of the alloys increased,but corrosion resistance decreased with titanium addition.

Influence of Impact Energy on Impact Corrosion-abrasion of High Manganese Steel

The impact corrosion-abrasion properties and mechanism of high manganese steel were investigated under different impact energies. The result shows that the wearability of the steel decreases with the increase of the impact energy. The dominant failure mechanism at a lower impact energy is the rupture of extrusion edge along root and a slight shallow-layer spalling. It transforms to shallow-layer fatigue flaking along with serious corrosion-abrasion when the impact energy is increased, and finally changes to bulk flaking of hardened laver caused by deeo work-hardening and heaw corrosion-abrasion.

Advances in studies of the tribological behavior of molecular deposition films

An overview of the advances in studies on tribology of molecular deposition （MD） films is presented here to summarize the studies of nanofrictional properties, adhesion, wear and mechanical behavior, as well as the molecular dynamics simulation of nanotribological properties of the film in the last decade. Some key research topics which need to be investigate further are addressed.

Wear Behavior of Cold Pressed and Sintered Al_2O_3/TiC/CaF_2-Al_2O_3/TiC Laminated Ceramic Composite

A novel laminated Al2O3/TiC/CaF2-Al2O3/TiC sandwich ceramic composite was fabricated through cold pressing and sintering to achieve better anti-wear performance, such as low friction coefficient and low wear rate. Al2O3/TiC/CaF2 and Al2O3/TiC composites were alternatively built layer-by-layer to obtain a sandwich structure. Solid lubricant CaF2 was added evenly into the Al2O3/TiC/CaF2 layer to reduce the friction and wear. Al2O3/TiC ceramic was also cold pressed and sintered for comparison. Friction analysis of the two ceramics was then conducted via a wear-and-tear machine. Worn surface and surface compositions were examined by scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersion spectrum, respectively. Results showed that the laminated Al2O3/TiC/CaF2-Al2O3/TiC sandwich ceramic composite has lower friction coefficient and lower wear rate than those of Al2O3/TiC ceramic alone because of the addition of CaF2 into the laminated Al2O3/TiC/CaF2-Al2O3/TiC sandwich ceramic composite. Under the friction load, the tiny CaF2 particles were scraped from the Al2O3/TiC/CaF2 layer and spread on friction pairs before falling off into micropits. This process formed a smooth, self-lubricating film, which led to better anti-wear properties. Adhesive wear is the main wear mechanism of Al2O3/TiC/CaF2 layer and abrasive wear is the main wear mechanism of Al2O3/TiC layer.

Wear properties of copper and copper composites powders consolidated by high-pressure torsion

The wear characteristics of Cu and Cu-SiC composite microsize powders consolidated by cold com­paction combined with sintering or high-pressure torsion(HPT)were investigated.The HPT processed(HPTed)samples with bimodal and trimodal microstructures and fine Cu grains and SiC particle sizes have superior hardness,reasonable ductility level,and high wear resistance.The wear mass loss and coefficient of friction of HPTed samples were remarkably lower than that of cold-compacted and sintered samples as well as that of micro and nano Cu and Cu-SiC composites from previous studies.The sample fabrication method has an apparent influence on the wear mechanism.The wear mechanism was converted from adhesive,delamination,three-body mechanism,grooves(take off the SiC particles),and cracks into abrasive wear after HPT.Oxidization can be considered a dominant wear mechanism in all cases.The worn surface morphology and analysis support the relationship between wear mechanism and characteristics.

Effect of cerium on wettability of mechanically milled Cu-based brazing alloy powder

CuSn powders and Till2 powders were milled using high energy mechanical milling to prepare Cu-based alloy powders for brazing diamond. And Ce was added to the milled Cu-based alloy powders to improve the wettability. It is found that the wetting angle reaches the minimum value 13.2° and the maximum spreading area 178 mm2 is achieved when the amount of Ce is 0.75 wt%. And Ce remarkably reduces the surface tension of liquid alloy, which improves the climbing height along the diamond and forms a massive support profile. And the results show that Ce can effectively improve the transverse rupture strength （TRS） due to high wettability. The wear characteristics of the diamonds brazed with Cu-based alloy containing 0.75 wt% Ce mainly consist of integrity, micro-fracture, fracture and rubdown, diamonds pull-out can not easily happen.