Effect of Surface Defect Spacing and Alignment on Rail Rolling Contact Fatigue Damage

doi:10.3901/JME.2025.06.194

Abstract

Abstract: In order to study the interaction between multiple defects on the rail surface, the surface defect(depth h≈450 μm，intersection angle θ≈60° and the diameter of circular surface d≈0.6 mm) were prepared on the rail sample based on the defect preparation apparatus. Rolling contact fatigue damage and microstructure evolution of rail samples with surface defect clusters in different spacing and alignment were studied using the twin-disc wheel/rail rolling-sliding wear testing machine and the ABAQUS finite element simulation software. The results show that compared with the single defect, once the spacing between two defects aligned transversely and longitudinally was less than 3.5 mm(6d) and 1 mm(1.5d) respectively, the two defects would affect each other during the wheel/rail rolling contact process, and the defects would need a longer time to be removed. The material damage area, the area that influenced by contact stress and the remaining crack depth could be increased to 2.5, 4.5 and 1.5 times of the single defect respectively. Meanwhile, once the spacing between transverse and longitudinal defects was greater than 4 mm(6.5d) and 1.5 mm(2.5d) respectively, there was basically no interaction between the two defects. In addition, damage degree of the material around the two defects within the critical distance increased with the increase in the spacing. Research results have a certain reference significance for the field rail maintenance.

Key words: surface defect, critical spacing, rolling contact fatigue, microstructure evolution, crack depth

CLC Number:

TH117

ZHANG Shuyue, WANG Wenjian, LIN Qiang, GUO Jun, LIU Qiyue, Maksym Spriyagin, Qing Wu. Effect of Surface Defect Spacing and Alignment on Rail Rolling Contact Fatigue Damage[J]. Journal of Mechanical Engineering, 2025, 61(6): 194-205.

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