Experimental study on the surface microstructural evolution and fatigue wear resistance of pearlite wheel steels during rolling-sliding condition

Abstract

In present paper, the relationship between fatigue and wear of three kinds of pearlite wheel steel samples is investigated by using rolling wear tester under 0.2% slip ratio condition. The results show that the weight loss, the surface hardness and the thickness of plastic deformation layer of three kinds of wheel samples are increased as the increase of cycles during rolling wear process. The weight loss of the G1 wheel sample is the highest owing to the existence of a large amount of proeutectoid ferrite (PF)grains. The correlation between weight loss and fatigue is competitive. High weight loss of the G1 wheel sample can hinder the formation of fatigue wear cracks. As a result, the G1 wheel sample surface changes to smooth after wear. The low weight loss of the G2 wheel sample and the G3 wheel sample cannot hinder the production of fatigue wear cracks during wear process. At the late wear stage, the wheel sample surface produces many fatigue wear cracks, and the wear mechanism becomes fatigue wear. Fatigue wear cracks, which are the rolling contact fatigue (RCF) crack source, can accelerate the RCF failure of wheel samples.

Keywords

• pearlite wheel steel
• surface microstructure
• fatigue wear crack