No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Heavy haul transportation (load over 30 tons/axle), as well as the axle load, has been more and more used in Brazil and worldwide. The stress generated in the wheel-rail contact with loads up to 30 tons/axle is around 760 MPa, which causes premature wear and cracks of conventional wheels (AAR (Association of American Railroads) class C). Microalloyed wheels are fundamental on heavy haul transport, whose main function is to combine high hardness, ductility, and yield strength of the material in order to prevent shelling. The main purpose of this research is to develop a new microalloyed wheel steel with niobium addition that meets all the requirements of the AAR class D material with mixed microstructure composed of pearlite and bainite. The 0.71C/0.020Nb steel developed in this study (Nb material) for railroad achieved the standards required for AAR class D in all mechanical properties, with fracture toughness higher than the usual vanadium microalloyed steel used in comparison. The Continuous Cooling Transformation (CCT) diagram showed the presence of bainite even at very low cooling rate, in the range between 0.3-2 °C/s. These cooling rates to form bainite are much lower than those observed in other steels with similar composition.

The Heavy-Haul railroad wheels started to use higher wear resistance steels microalloyed with niobium, vanadium, and molybdenum [1]. During continuous cooling, these elements depress the temperature of the pearlite formation, producing smaller interlamellar spacing that increases the hardness of the steel, besides to favor the precipitation hardening through the formation of carbides [2, 3]. Also, they delay the formation of difusional components like pearlite and bainite during isothermal transformation. The effects of these alloy elements on microstructure during isothermal transformation were studied in this work using a Bähr 805A/D dilatometer. Three different compositions of class C railway wheels steels (two microalloyed and one, non microalloyed) were analyzed in temperatures between 200 and 700 °C. The microstructure and hardness for each isothermal treatment were obtained after the experiments. Comparing with non microalloyed steel (7C), the vanadium addition (7V steel) did not affect the beginning of diffusion-controlled reactions (pearlite and bainite), but delayed the end of these reactions, and showed separated bays for pearlite and bainite. The Nb + Mo addition delayed the beginning and the ending of pearlite and bainite formation and also showed distinct bays for them. The delays in diffusion-controlled reactions were more intense in the 7NbMo steel than in 7V steel. The V or Nb + Mo additions decreased the start temperature for martensite formation and increased the start temperature for austenite formation.

No abstract

To verify the effect of 0.13 % vanadium addition (% in weight) on the wear resistance of a railroad wheel steel with 0.7 % carbon, twin-disc rolling-sliding test were performed. These two steels were named 7V and 7C. The test discs were analyzed to verify the superficial conditions and wear mechanisms using SEM (Scanning Electron Microscopy) and roughness measurements. After 100,000 cycles running it was concluded that without the presence of debris, the 7V steel presented a reduction in 35 % the mass loss compared to 7C steel. For the 7V steel, in the test without debris, the discs presented small cracks (10 μm long), very near (3 μm deep) the surface, but in the test with the presence of debris, the disc surfaces presented delaminated material and long cracks (100 μm long) faraway from surface (up to 72 μm deep). The presence of debris also increased the roughness parameters in 7V steel: average Rz jumped from near 6 μm in the steel without debris to near 26 μm in the steel with debris.

To understand the effect of vanadium on the austenite decomposition of a 0.7 %C steel used in railway wheels the Continuous Cooling Transformation (CCT) diagrams were obtained and the microstructures analyzed with optical, SEM, TEM and XRD techniques. Vanadium refined the austenitic grain (12 and 6 μm for 7C and 7V, respectively), what can be explain by the presence of fine (10 nm in diameter) V4C3 precipitates, which restricts the austenitic grain growth. In addition, vanadium, in solid solution, reduced the pearlite interlamelar spacing (0.13 and 0.11 μm for 7C and 7V, respectively) by depressing the initial temperature pearlite formation (644 and 639 °C for 7C and 7V, respectively). He increased the ferrite volume fraction from 1 to 3 % at cooling rate of 1 oC/s, due the fact that vanadium is a ferrite stabilizer. Vanadium addition did not affect the initial temperature for martensite formation, but increased the hardenability with martensite formation at slower cooling rates (10 and 5 oC/s for 7C and 7V, respectively). For higher cooling rates (20 to 100 oC/s), the austenite transformation to martensite at room temperature was incomplete and all steels presented martensite and retained austenite, which volumetric fraction was near the same for both steels varying from 20 to 40 %.