Fatigue Property of Low Cost and High Strength Wheel Steel for Commercial Vehicle

The fatigue properties of the newly developed wheel steel used for commercial vehicles were studied using push-pull axial loading fatigue tests with stress ratio R = −1. Q235B steel, which is conventionally applied to commercial vehicle wheels, was also analyzed for comparison. Although the chemical composition and microstructure (ferrite and pearlite) of newly developed wheel steel were similar to those of Q235B, the 107 cycles fatigue limit of the new wheel steel was 260 MPa, which is 24% higher than that of Q235B (210 MPa). The improvement of the fatigue strength of the new wheel steel can be attributed to grain refinement. In order to investigate the effect of the decrease in thickness of the wheel steel on the fatigue property of the wheel, dynamic cornering fatigue tests were conducted on full scale wheels with the model of 8.25 × 22.5. The results indicated that the newly developed wheel steel had outstanding fatigue life even if the mass loss was 10% in comparison with Q235B.