Designing steel composition and microstructure to better resist degradation during wheel-rail contact

为了降低铁路系统的全寿命成本（通过增加资产寿命，减少维护）并产生性能改进（例如增加服务可用性和可靠性），为铁路部件选择最佳材料组合是很重要的。为车轮和轨道选择最佳材料是一项复杂的任务，有许多相互冲突的要求，包括：一系列失效机制，各种操作和负载条件以及相关的财务影响。这项研究将建立对钢轨和车轮钢的冶金特性的全面科学理解，以使科学知情的选择。它将考虑到由于铁路轮轨接触的特殊性而产生的具体要求和在全系统一级的经济权衡。塔塔钢铁公司最近开发的“高性能”（HPRail）钢轨表明，通过明智地选择合金元素来改变钢的显微组织特性，可以提高耐磨损和滚动接触疲劳（RCF）的能力。然而，要理解这种钢成功的原因，还需要进一步的基础研究，以确定钢微观结构的不同成分如何对施加在轮轨界面上的力作出反应。这样的研究结果将有助于建立设计规则，以工程钢的微结构，提供一个步骤的变化，以抵抗关键的退化机制，更大的退化率的可预测性。该项目结合了来自四所大学（分别位于哈德斯菲尔德大学、剑桥大学、利兹大学和克兰菲尔德大学）的跨学科团队的技能，这是处理复杂现象所必需的。

To reduce whole-life costs of the railway system (through increased asset life, reduced maintenance) and generate performance improvements (such as increased service availability and reliability), it is important to select the optimum material composition for railway components. Selecting the optimum materials for wheels and rails is a complex task with many conflicting requirements, including: a range of failures mechanisms, variety of operating and loading conditions and the associated financial implications. This research will establish a comprehensive scientific understanding of the metallurgical characteristics of rail and wheel steels to enable scientifically-informed choices. It will take account of both the specific requirements arising from the peculiarities of railway wheel-rail contact and the economic trade-offs at a system-wide level.Recent development of 'High Performance' (HPRail) rail steel by Tata Steel has shown that improvements in the resistance to both wear and rolling contact fatigue (RCF) can be achieved through judicious choice of alloying elements to alter the microstructural characteristic of the steel. However, the understanding of reasons for the success of such steels requires further fundamental research to establish how the different constituents of steel microstructures react to the forces imposed at the wheel-rail interface. The results of such research will help establish the design rules to engineer steel microstructures that provide a step change in the resistance to key degradation mechanisms with greater predictability of the deterioration rates.The project combines the skills of an interdisciplinary team from four Universities (based at the Universities of Huddersfield, Cambridge, Leeds and Cranfield), necessary to deal with the complexity of the phenomena,