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IntroductionThe track running systems enable movement of heavy vehicles on unpaved and rough terrain, snow-covered, marshy or swampy surfaces, as well as overcoming natural or artificial barriers [5,7,28]. This is possible by distributing the vehicle mass on greater surface which causes significant drop in unit pressure, increase in adherence of a vehicle and achieving greater driving force. The systems also improve quality of operation and maneuvering a vehicle in the difficult terrain conditions by reducing the rolling resistance and the tendency of a vehicle to sink.The track is a closed band girding wheels and rolls of the track running system on the circumference of which four zones can be distinguished: the upper one rolled over tension rollers, the retaining one cooperating with the ground, since it determines the size of the resulting driving force necessary for the motion of the vehicle, and the two inclined ones contained between one of the support wheels and the drive wheel, as well as the carrier wheel and the directional wheel [5,28]. The track chain bears all forces, vertical, longitudinal and transverse, appearing in contact of a vehicle with foundation. Due to the construction the metal, rubber-metal and elastomer tracks can be distinguished.The elastomeric tracks are designed on the principle of the inner chain created by links responsible for carrying the drive from the driving wheel and preventing sliding the track off [5,7,28]. Additionally, the track is reinforced with steel cord sunk in elastomer creating the tread pattern aimed at stiffening the structure, maintaining its proper deflection and giving the proper resistance to tensile forces.The cord is a structure composed of strands created by several intertwined individual wires. The cord may also be the strand itself made of several wires [3,11,16,19,20]. Individual wires have diameters from 0,15 to 0,38 mm, are produced as brass or zinc plated wires and have the following properties [16,18,19,20]: very high dynamic module, -high stiffness, -high strength, -low creep capacity, -high compressive modulus, -dimensional stability, -high resonance frequencies. -Wires designated for production of steel cord reinforcing tracks are manufactured from unalloyed pearlitic steel. The pearlitic steels containing from about 0,70 to 0,95% C belong to the group of unalloyed steels of the quality class designated for cold drawing or rolling [1-3, 8, 11, 18, 20]. Their chemical composition and mechanical properties are in compliance with the PN-EN 10323:2006 (U) standard [12]. As standard the steel wires for cord are characterised with tensile strength within the range of 2573 to even 4116 MPa [11,16].One of the problems widely discussed in the subject literature is cracking of the pearlitic steel subjected to plastic working and during its operating [4,18,10,14,16]. The problem is the more serious that it concerns ...