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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Ajay Kapoor, Dr Francis Franklin
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Material in railway rails is loaded repeatedly by the passage of the wheel. The maximum contact pressure which the material can carry elastically in the steady state is known as the 'shakedown limit'. With an operating contact pressure below the shakedown limit the rail would be expected to remain elastic with a very long life. However, examination of rail cross-sections shows severe plastic deformation in a sub-surface layer of a few tens of microns thickness; the contact patch size is in tens of millimetres. This raises two questions: firstly, why should plastic flow occur if the shakedown limit is not exceeded; and secondly, why should plastic flow be confined to a thin sub-surface layer? It is hypothesized that asperity contacts are responsible for the observed plastic flow. This hypothesis was investigated in experiments on a twin-disc machine and was found to be correct. Numerical analysis showed that roughness causes the contact pressure to deviate from the assumed Hertzian (smooth) to one which is spiky.
Author(s): Kapoor A; Franklin FJ; Wong SK; Ishida M
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Wear
Year: 2002
Volume: 253
Issue: 1-2
Pages: 257-264
ISSN (print): 0043-1648
ISSN (electronic): 1873-2577
Publisher: Elsevier BV
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0043-1648(02)00111-4
DOI: 10.1016/S0043-1648(02)00111-4
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