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(通过延长资产寿命、减少维护)并改进性能(如提高服务可用性和可靠性)，为铁路部件选择最佳的材料组成非常重要。选择车轮和钢轨的最佳材料是一项复杂的任务，具有许多相互冲突的要求，包括：一系列故障机制、各种运行和加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冶金特性的全面科学理解，以便在科学知情的情况下进行选择。它将考虑到铁路轮轨接触特性产生的特殊要求和系统范围内的经济权衡。塔塔钢铁最近开发的高性能(HPRail)轨钢表明，通过明智地选择合金元素来改变钢的组织特征，可以提高耐磨性和滚动接触疲劳(RCF)。然而，要理解这类钢成功的原因，需要进行进一步的基础研究，以确定钢组织的不同成分对施加在轮轨界面上的力有何反应。这类研究的结果将有助于建立设计规则，以设计钢结构微结构，提供对关键退化机制的阶梯变化，并对劣化率具有更大的可预测性。该项目结合了来自四所大学(总部设在哈德斯菲尔德大学、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，这是处理这些现象的复杂性所必需的，

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,