Effect of heat treatment and microalloying on fatigue life of pearlitic rail steel

doi:10.13251/j.issn.0254-6051.2025.03.007

Abstract

Abstract: In order to further study the effects of adding rare earth and microalloying elements and heat treatment process on the fatigue life of the pearlitic rail steels, the high-cycle fatigue test was conducted on BG400 rail steel in rolled and heat-treated states and the contrast design of microalloyed rare earth tested steel, the fatigue fracture was also carefully observed and analyzed. The results show that the heat treatment process of austenitizing at 900 ℃ for 15 min, followed by isothermal quenching at 540 ℃ for 60 s, significantly improves the fatigue life of the rail steels, and the fatigue property of the microalloyed rare earth tested steel is better than that of BG400 steel, making the overall S-N curve move to the right. The reason is that rational heat treatment process reduces the lamellar spacing of pearlite. The addition of rare earth elements and microalloying elements effectively refines the grain size. The combining effect of these two factors means that cracks need to consume more energy when traversing grains of different orientations and lamellae. This enhances the ability to resist fatigue crack propagation, reduces the spacing of fatigue striations, and slows down the fatigue crack growth rate, thereby significantly improving the fatigue life of the steel.

Key words: heat treatment, rare earth and microalloying elements, fatigue life, fracture analysis

CLC Number:

TG111

Liu Chang, Wang Dongmei, Jiang Hongli, Liu Dong, Cen Yaodong, Bao Xirong, Chen Lin. Effect of heat treatment and microalloying on fatigue life of pearlitic rail steel[J]. Heat Treatment of Metals, 2025, 50(3): 44-50.

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