Investigation on the relationship between microstructure and wear characteristic of rail materials

Abstract The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the microstructure and the wear characteristic of rail materials. Different rail materials with different austenite grain sizes (40–135 µm), pearlite colony sizes (5.4–10.6 µm) and pearlite interlamellar spacings (0.16–0.33 µm) were obtained through heat treatment. Rolling-sliding wear tests were performed. With the increases in the microstructure size (i.e., pearlite interlamellar spacing, pearlite colony size and austenite grain size), the wear rates of rail material were increased. The pearlite colony size has the most significant influence on wear resistance, followed by the pearlite interlamellar spacing and the austenite grain size. With the increase in the microstructure size, the lengths of rolling contact fatigue cracks were decreased but the crack angles were increased.