Wear and damage transitions of wheel and rail materials under various contact conditions

•Wear data over a wide range of contact conditions is generated in this study.•Wear and damage transitions of materials under various conditions are clarified.•The damage mechanism of wheel/rail transforms in the different wear regimes.•The results allow evolution prediction of wheel/rail over a wider condition range.

This study discusses a Tγ/A method of plotting wear data from a twin-disc machine for identifying the wear and damage transitions of wheel and rail materials. As found in previous work, three wear regimes (mild wear, severe wear and catastrophic wear) of U71Mn rail material were identified in dry rolling–sliding contact tests. It was determined that the damage mechanism transforms in the different wear regimes. Here earlier studies were extended to establish wear behavior for the presence of a number of third body materials (oil, water, friction enhancers) and a rail cladding process designed to make wheels and rails more durable. This has provided much needed data for Multi-Body Dynamics (MBD) simulations, and will allow better predictions of profile evolution of wheel and rail over a wider range of conditions.