Tensile stresses of unsafe magnitude can be occasionally found in the rim of railway wheels, as a result of drag-braking under severe conditions. Such stresses are an hazard for human, environmental and economical reasons, since they may drive cracks up to wheel failure. Railway organizations and wheel manufacturers thus pointed out the demand for an NDE method enabling the non-invasive assessment of rim residual stresses. A joint work was carried to validate for such task an ultrasonic system, ECOMAT, which can evaluate residual stresses through the acoustoelastic effect, measuring the birefringence. of two shear waves produced by a non-contact dual-coil EMAT probe. The authors compared birefringence and strain gauge data on new wheels, during wheel sectioning, and observed that stresses were differing for less than +/- 10 MPa. Additional trial tests were performed, which could allow to optimize the evaluation of travelling time, in order to grant reliable stress measurements also on used wheels. ECOMAT is currently operating in a wheelset inspection and maintenance plant, and a program is in under way to integrate the system in a wheel production line.
Ultrasonic assessment of residual stresses in the rim of railways solid wheels
Bestimmung der Eigenspannung im Randbereich von massiven Eisenbahnrädern mit Ultraschall
1998
8 Seiten, 7 Bilder, 5 Quellen
Conference paper
English
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