Heavy haul railway operations permit the transport of huge volumes at lower cost than other modes of transport. The low cost can only be sustained if the maintenance costs associated with such railway operations are minimised. The maintenance costs are mainly driven by wheel and rail damage in the form of wear and rolling contact fatigue (RCF). Low wear rates in the wheel-rail interface have resulted in an increase in the prevalence of rail RCF, thereby increasing rail maintenance costs. The aim of this study is to develop an approach to reduce rail RCF on South Africa’s iron ore export line by managing the worn wheel shape. This approach is developed by evaluating wheel and rail profile shapes that contribute the most to RCF initiation, studying the influence of suspension stiffness and rail profile changes as well as a redesign of the wheel profile. The influence of wheel and rail profile shape features on the initiation of rolling contact fatigue (RCF) cracks was evaluated based on the results of multibody vehicle dynamics simulations. The damage index and surface fatigue index were used as two damage parameters to assess the influence of the different features. The damage parameters showed good agreement to one another and to in-field observations. The wheel and rail profile shape features showed a correlation to the predicted RCF damage. The RCF damage proved to be most sensitive to the position of hollow wear and thus bogie tracking. RCF initiation and crack growth can be reduced by eliminating unwanted shape features through maintenance and design and by improving bogie tracking. Two potential mitigation measures had been adapted from those published in literature to reduce RCF. The mitigation measures involved changes in suspension stiffness to spread wheel wear across the tread and the use of gauge corner relief rail profiles. These mitigation measures were evaluated by means of multibody dynamics and wear maintenance costs. These mitigation measures, however, did not prove to be successful in reducing RCF initiation while maintaining a low wheel wear rate. The current operating conditions on South Africa’s iron ore line, although still not optimal overall, were found to be better in terms of their wear and RCF performance than the two proposed RCF mitigation measures. Based on the finding of the study on two RCF mitigation measures it was recommended that a conformal wheel profile be developed to spread the wheel wear across the tread to reduce the occurrence and propagation of RCF cracks, while still maintaining low wheel wear rates. A comparative study of this new wheel profile design and the current wheel profile design was therefore performed using multibody dynamics simulation together with numerical wheel wear and RCF predictions. The advantages of the conformal wheel profile design were illustrated by evaluating the worn shape and resulting kinematic behaviour of the conformal design. The conformal design had a steadier equivalent conicity progression and a smaller conicity range compared with the current wheel profile design over the wheel’s wear life. The combination of a conformal wheel profile design with 2 mm hollow wear and inadequate adherence to grinding tolerances often result in two-point contact, thereby increasing the probability of RCF initiation. The conformal wheel profile design was shown to have many wear and RCF benefits compared with the current wheel profile design. However, implementation of such a conformal wheel profile must be accompanied by improved rail grinding practices to ensure rail profile compliance. Based on these findings an approach is proposed where the conformal wheel profile design together with improved compliance of the in-service rail profiles to the target rail profile are implemented. This has the potential to reduce RCF initiation on South Africa’s iron ore export line. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2017. / Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering / PhD / Unrestricted

Thread rolling is a unique metal forming process which is commonly used to form screw threads on threaded fasteners and precision leadscrews at relatively high rates of speed. Threads are formed on a cylindrical blank by flat or cylindrical dies having the reverse form on them, which rotate and penetrate the blank simultaneously, to plastically deform it into a precise geometry. Thread rolling dies are exposed to a complex state of cyclical contact stresses that eventually cause the dies to fail by fatigue and wear. The stress state is not easily ascertained through standard analytical models due to complex geometry and process conditions. This research seeks to better understand the state of contact stresses present in cylindrical thread rolling dies as they form material, to aid in identifying and testing economical methods of improving thread rolling die fatigue life. Some work has been published on using FEA simulation software to model the thread rolling process, but no work has been published on using FEA software to analyze the stresses in thread rolling dies. DEFORM®-3D Forming Simulation Software by Scientific Forming Technologies Corporation in Columbus, Ohio was used to simulate the throughfeed thread rolling process and model the state of stresses in the dies. The results were compared to the Hertzian contact stress model and the Smith Liu equations for rolling and sliding friction. Fatigue life prediction methods involving S-N curves, surface fatigue strength, and Weibull probability distributions were tested using the simulation data against field results. An optimized die design was generated from a design of experiments simulating different die design geometry. Findings show that field failures correlate well to the DEFORM® simulation results. The Hertz model with Smith Liu equations improved correlation with the simulation. Fatigue life prediction models correlated reasonably well to field results using the simulation data for inputs. These findings can aid in selecting appropriate die materials, design parameters, and fatigue life treatments.

La fatigue de contact fait référence au processus d’endommagement situé à l’extrémité du contact entre deux corps soumis à des chargements de fatigue. La prédiction de ce phénomène est d’une importance majeure dans la détermination de la durée de vie de certains systèmes tels que les disques de turbines. Au voisinage du front de contact, le champ de contraintes est maximal en surface et présente un fort gradient sous le contact. De plus, la différence d’échelle entre les essais effectués en laboratoire et les systèmes industriels a motivé l’étude de l’effet de taille sur les modèles de fatigue des systèmes soumis à des chargements de fatigue du contact.Afin de quantifier l’effet de gradient de contraintes et l’effet de taille, des essais ont été effectués sur une machine de fatigue munis de deux vérins verticaux à l’université de Brasilia. Les essais ont été menés de sorte que les gradients de contraintes, puis les volumes contraints, soient différents. Une étude post-mortem des surfaces de rupture a été effectuée à l’aide d’un microscope confocal. Durant cette thèse, il a été montré que, pour un alliage de Ti-6Al-4v, une approche non locale basée sur un champ de vitesse équivalent extrait à l’intérieur d’une zone prédéterminée autour de l’extrémité du contact amène des résultats encourageants pour la détermination de la durée de vie. L’influence de la force de fatigue sur la description des mécanismes d’initiation de fissures et leur propagation a également été déterminée et il est apparu que cette dernière ne pouvait pas être négligée lors de la définition de la frontière d’initiation des fissures. En effet, si, en fatigue du contact, environ 75% du mécanisme d’initiation des fissures est contrôlé par les contraintes de contact, i.e. les contraintes de cisaillement et de pression, la prise en compte de la contrainte normale permet d’obtenir des prédictions plus précises.L’étude de l’effet de taille a été divisée en deux phases. Premièrement, l’influence de la taille du volume sous contrainte a été analysée. Pour cela, l’épaisseur des éprouvettes a été réduite tandis que le gradient de contraintes sous le contact ainsi que l’aire de la surface endommagée étaient maintenus constants. Dans un second temps, l’impact de la zone endommagée sur la résistance à la fatigue a été isolé en maintenant les paramètres expérimentaux, i.e. σB,max/p0 et Q/fP, constants tandis que l’aire endommagée par le frottements était réduite. Les résultats expérimentaux ont été analysés à l’aide d’un critère de fatigue multiaxial, le Courbe de Wöhler Modifiée, conjointement avec l’application de la théorie de la distance critique. Il a été montré qu’aucun de ces deux paramètres n’influence significativement la durée de vie en fatigue, et ainsi le terme « effet de taille » généralement référencé dans la littérature comme un effet d’endommagement devrait seulement être adressé comme un effet de gradient. / Fretting fatigue refers to the damage process localized at the frontier of the contact between two contacting bodies subjected to fatigue loadings. The prediction of this phenomenon is of major importance in determining, for instance, the lifetime of fan’s disk. In the vicinity of the contact front, the stress field inherited from the contact loads is maximal at the surface and displays a strong gradient under the contact. The difference of scale between the laboratory’s experiments and the industrials’ system motivated the study of the impact of the size effect for the determination of the lifetimes.To quantify the effect of the stress gradient and of the size effect, tests were carried out on a two vertical-actuators fretting-fatigue rig at the University of Brasilia, with experimental conditions ensuring different stress gradient and later different volume solicited under the contact. Damage mechanisms were studied using post-mortem analysis with a confocal microscope on some contact elements tested.It was shown on this thesis, for a Ti-6Al-4V alloy, that a nonlocal approach, based on equivalent velocity field on a determined area around the contact, leads to good expectation for the determination of fretting fatigue lives. The influence of the bulk stress for the description of the fretting fatigue crack initiation and propagation was also determined and it appears that it could not be neglected for the determination of the crack initiation boundary. As a matter of fact, if around 75% of the crack initiation mechanism in fretting fatigue is controlled by the contact stresses, i.e. shear and contact stresses, the consideration of the normal stress allows to obtain more realistic prediction. The study of the size effect was divided into two phases. First the influence of the volume stressed was investigated by reducing the width of the contact but maintaining the stress gradient under the contact and the damaged area within the slip zone constant. Then, the influence of the damaged area within the slip zone was isolated by maintaining the experimental parameters, i.e. σB,max/p0 and Q/fP, constant while the damaged area under the slip zone was reduced. The experimental results were analysed by applying a fatigue criterion, the Modified Wöhler Curve Method, in conjunction with the Theory of the Critical Distance. It was found that none of these two parameters influences significantly the fretting fatigue lifetimes, and so the term ‘size effect’ usually referenced in the literature as a damaging effect should refer only to the gradient effect.

This thesis studies the possibilities of exploiting the acoustic emission method as a tool for more detailed identification of the radial bearings damage formation. The work includes comparison of different evaluation methods in laboratory tests. Applied couplant between the contact sensor areas and sensing surfaces is also taken into account. The practical part includes the presentation of the experimental station and structural adjustments made. The main part of the work comprises the examples in detail of three types of experimental tests that simulate the possible failure of bearings and their manifestation in the sensing signal. Testing methodology developed with recommended values for setting common AE signal measurement, vibration and temperature is a part of the thesis, too.

This thesis describes a study of the influence of surface texturing on rolling contact fatigue of non-conformal contacts. The texture depth and density have been considered during experiments. It also presents the methodology and the procedure of creation of micro-dents on sample surfaces. Described results suggested that properly designed surface texturing should not necessarily increase the risk of fatigue failure of rubbing surfaces.

The thesis proposes a methodology for damage identification of thrust bearings using acoustic emission method. The work is the way of the hydraulic loading of specimens and thrust bearings with programmable settings severity and duration of load cycles during contact fatigue tests at stations Axmat. They are designed structural adjustment elements (waveguides) to capture the acoustic emission signal selected apparatus, including the modification of software to capture the data. At the described experiments is verified functionality of the circular test specimens and axial bearings . Part of this work is to propose a new methodology for identifying early stages of contact fatigue using a combination of diagnostic methods.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.