Wheelsets & bogies
New wheel steel set to improve wear resistance
A new grade of steel called Arcticlos has been designed to guarantee wheel resistance against wear and in particular rolling contact fatigue. As Markus Diener from ETH Zurich and Andrea Ghidini with Lucchini RS explain, the new wheel is going through a stringent quality control and testing programme.
railway solid wheels was to take a steel grade like ER7 with all its good toughness characteristics and combine it with the higher strength of an ER8 steel grade. The new steel is designed to guarantee wheel resistance against wear and in particular rolling contact fatigue (RCF). The new steel grade is undergoing
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both the standard European tests for new wheels and special tests according to the Russian Gost standard, while the application of so-called quality maps, which is standard for Lucchini RS’s steel production process, assures the safety and performance of the material. The use of quality indices not only allows a comparison of the performance of different steel qualities but also shows the improvement of each steel grade in a simple graph. The European standard EN 13262
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HE Ukrainian capital Kiev is the venue for the International Wheelset Congress (IWC)
which is taking place on September 22-27. This is the first time the tri- annual event has been staged in a CIS country since it was founded by Lucchini in 1963. The congress will be opened by Mr Nilkolay Sergienko, associate director of Ukrainian Railways (pictured), and Mr Philippe Citroën director general of the European Rail Industry Association (Unife) which is one of the three organisers. The other two are Unife’s railway wheelset committee, ERWA, and KLWWheelCo, the host company and part of Interpipe. The main theme of the conference
will be the new technologies which are helping to increase the operational life of wheelsets. The conference sessions will be dedicated to the
IRJ September 2013
HE idea behind the development of a new steel grade called Arcticlos for the manufacture of
specifies the characteristics for wheels used in Europe according to two categories, with category 1 for speeds in excess of 200km/h, and defines four steel grades: ER6, ER7, ER8 and ER9. The standard specifies that one wheel per batch must be tested for destructive metallurgical properties. In addition to the properties verified
by conventional tests for European solid wheels, other test methods are performed in order to simulate the wheel material’s behaviour and guarantee its resistance even at very low temperatures. UT characteristics can be defined according to category 1. This is generally chosen in Europe when train speed exceeds 200km/h. Atechnical instruction deals with the reference standards, the product definition and metallurgical requirements and with inspection and testing, which are necessary to meet wheel product requirements. First, Lucchini RS produces the liquid
Wheelset specialists roll into Kiev
following issues: wheel defects
resulting in failure - the main types of wheel wear and how to
control it rail/wheel/brake-
shoe interaction equipment to test wheel strength characteristics - analysis of the fatigue properties of rails and
axles development of new
steel grades for rolling stock wheels monitoring the wheel life-cycle and establishing a feedback between wheel
producers and users the latest non-destructive testing technologies for railway wheels and
axles including hardness testing, and the technical peculiarities of high-
speed rail wheels and axles. Two workshops are also
staged during the congress. The Euraxles workshop will provide an insight into innovative European research into axles, while a CIS workshop will provide delegates with an overview of the fast growing CIS railway wheels market. There will be a small
exhibition by some of the leading wheelset manufacturers. Delegates
will also have the opportunity to visit Interpipe’s steel mill and wheel-shop in Dnepropetrovsk on September 27. The steel mill is the first plant to be built since Ukraine became an independent country, and is the largest electric steel-smelting complex in Europe and the CIS.
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steel to manufacture the solid wheels using a manufacturing process designed to achieve high levels of micro-cleanliness and structural homogeneity in the steel. Lucchini RS also applies a calibration of forging and heat treatment parameters to reach very homogeneous values of mechanical properties in solid wheels. Wheel life depends on many factors,
some of which are intrinsically linked to vehicle engineering and service conditions, while for others the wheel manufacturer can have an indirect influence through the manufacturing process, such as steel making, melting, forging, heat treatment and machining. The continuous development of new processes to improve wheel performance is one of the main challenges for rolling stock manufacturers. The quality of Arcticlos steel grade is defined by a special chemical analysis. The steel is melted in an electric arc furnace, refined and vacuum degassed
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