Wheel steel strengthening with fiber lasers

Abstract

At present time in Russia under conditions of a stable industrial growth the effectiveness of railway transport work obtains importance. One of the basic expense items of “RR” Co. (“Russian Railways” Company) is connected with the intensive wear problem of contact surfaces in wheel pairs at the interaction with a railway surface. In the railway system of Russia there are used many ways for the solution of this problem such as friction constant decrease – lubrication, wear-resistance increase in wheel pairs at the expense of various methods use for surface strengthening and other methods. 
 The authors offer for the strengthening problem solution to use fiber lasers the application of which gives a number of incontestable advantages in comparison with common methods of material processing: a controllability of a strengthened layer depth, a possibility of surface local working and others. Today the demand for laser techniques grows actively because, in the opinion of authors, fiber lasers give a considerably higher result in comparison with common methods of processing.