Adhesion and damage characteristics of wheel/rail using different mineral particles as adhesion enhancers

Abstract Mineral particles are used to improve adhesion between wheel and rail, but they might lead to severe damages of wheel and rail surfaces. To investigate the adhesion enhancement phenomena and damages of both wheel and rail induced by adhesion enhancers, the crushing strengths of four types of mineral particles (zinc oxide, sand, spinel and alumina) were firstly explored on a uniaxial compression tester. Then the adhesion, wear and damage of wheel/rail were studied on a twin-disc machine under the wet condition. The results show that the characteristic crushing strength is 24 MPa for zinc oxide, 40MPa for sand, 51 MPa for spinel and 73 MPa for alumina, respectively. For particle with the lowest crushing strength (zinc oxide), the adhesion coefficient was the lowest (around 0.20). With the increase in the crushing strength to 40 MPa, the adhesion coefficient was improved to around 0.28. The particles with higher crushing strengths induce larger wheel/rail wear rates and severer rolling contact fatigue (RCF) damages on wheel and rail. The RCF cracks are large in lengths but small in angles, which finally develop into large pieces of material peeling off from the surface. Sand is the most suitable adhesion enhancer considering its good adhesion enhancement and the relatively mild damage on wheel/rail materials.