Subsurface crack propagation from internal defect in rolling contact fatigue of railway wheel steel

Abstract

Rolling contact fatigue failure is one of the main fatigue damages in railway wheels caused by cyclic rolling contact with rails. This fatigue failure is caused by internal defects such as nonmetallic inclusions or voids and may occur in heavy haul freight car wheels. The subsurface crack propagation behaviors caused by the internal defects are evaluated by twin-disc-type rolling contact fatigue tests using test specimens with artificial defects. Finite element analyses involving simulated rolling contact fatigue tests are also conducted. The subsurface cracks are more likely to propagate in the test specimens with larger artificial defects. Moreover, cracks initiating from the trailing side of the defects propagate faster than those from the leading side. Shear mode equivalent stress intensity factors obtained from the finite element analyses correspond well to the results of the rolling contact fatigue tests. The test specimen models with larger defects have larger equivalent stress intensity factor ranges than the test specimen models with smaller defects in both the leading and trailing sides. The results of the finite element analyses also suggest that the crack propagations are affected by the deformation of the artificial defects, which leads to higher resistance to crack propagation in test specimens with smaller internal defects.