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Civil-Comp Proceedings
ISSN 1759-3433
CCP: 104
PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON RAILWAY TECHNOLOGY: RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT AND MAINTENANCE
Edited by: J. Pombo
Paper 118

A Microstructural Study of Rolling Contact Fatigue in Rails

J. Wu1, R.H. Petrov1,2, M. Naeimi3, Z. Li3 and J. Sietsma1

1Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands
2Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Ghent University, Belgium
3Section of Railway Engineering, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geoscience, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands

Full Bibliographic Reference for this paper
J. Wu, R.H. Petrov, M. Naeimi, Z. Li, J. Sietsma, "A Microstructural Study of Rolling Contact Fatigue in Rails", in J. Pombo, (Editor), "Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Railway Technology: Research, Development and Maintenance", Civil-Comp Press, Stirlingshire, UK, Paper 118, 2014. doi:10.4203/ccp.104.118
Keywords: RCF, MnS inclusion, EBSD, strain concentration, crack propagation, KAM misorientation.

Summary
In this paper, microstructural features due to rolling contact fatigue in rails were studied by means of microhardness, optical microscope, and high resolution electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD). Significant strain accumulation was found not only in the rail surface but also near MnS inclusions at 680µm beneath the surface. It is shown that the extent of straining at the inclusion is comparable to the one in the rail surface. As a consequence, the MnS inclusions might alter the propagation route of rolling contact fatigue (RCF) cracks. This imposes very strong requirements for metallurgy quality control.

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