Influence of Service Temperatures on the Fatigue Behaviour of Railway Wheel and Tyre Steels*

Abstract

Abstract The current investigations are focussed on high-speed passenger-traffic and commercial-freight transportation railway wheel and tyre steels, which were provided by a system supplier of the DB AG in technically relevant heat treatment conditions. As a consequence of the industrial heat treatment, microstructural gradients emerge in the rim of monobloc wheels and tyres, leading to a local-dependence of the fatigue behaviour. Fatigue specimens, representing the local microstructure were machined from defined depth-positions. The fatigue behaviour at ambient temperature and elevated service temperatures was assessed by mechanical stress-strain hysteresis and electrical resistance measurements. The local microstructure influences the fatigue behaviour in a characteristic manner.