Fatigue life assessment of a railway wheel material under HCF and VHCF conditions

Abstract

Fatigue damage and life assessment is still an issue and a challenge nowadays. Many different tests can be performed for the assessment of fatigue properties of any given material. In the present study a worn out railway wheel goes under uniaxial fatigue analyses for the high cycle and very high cycle fatigue regimes through the use of a conventional hydraulic machine and an ultrasonic fatigue test, both with a stress ratio of R=-1. For every used specimen, a life cycle is obtained for the corresponding induced specimen and the data is afterwards plotted. All the fracture surfaces of all failed specimens were analysed. The study and initial application of multiaxial ultrasonic fatigue condition and the design of the corresponding specimen for evaluating the wheel material is also presented.