Thermal softening of fine pearlitic steel and its effect on the fatigue behaviour

Associated with the durability of railway wheelsets, thermal damage was studied for two different steels in the temperature range 500 °C to 725 °C. Softening caused by cementite spheroidisation in the pearlitic materials leads to changes in the mechanical behaviour. It was found that higher contents of silicon and manganese leads to better resistance to softening. Correspondingly, softening leads to loss in fatigue life times at given stress amplitudes as read out from Wöhler curves. However the higher alloyed steel looses much less in fatigue life time than the less alloyed steel.