Influence of the steel grades on rolling contact fatigue of railway wheels

The aim of this work is to develop a numerical approach which is able to include the inelastic material behavior in order to compare the different steel grades influence on rolling contact fatigue of railways wheels according to practical conditions. The main stages are the identification of the material behavior using genetic algorithms, the determination of the stress-strain fields by steady-state method and the application of a fatigue criterion. Two steels usually used for the manufacturing of wheels have been studied: R7T and R9T. Their influence has been numerically studied. Results show that the local stress-strain path along the streamline and the fatigue stress path differ depending on the steel grades and consequently the risk of damage can be affected, allowing a classification of the material grades face the risk on rolling contact fatigue.