Lubricants Influence on Wear in Sharp Rail Curves
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2006:11 DOCTORAL T H E SI S Lubricants Influence on Wear in Sharp Rail Curves Patric Waara Luleå University of Technology Department of Applied Physics and Mechanical Engineering Division of Machine Elements 2006:11|: 102-1544|: - -- 06 ⁄011 -- Lubricants influence on wear in sharp rail curves Patric Waara Division of Machine Elements Applied Physics and Mechanical Engineering Luleå University of Technology SE-971 87 Luleå, Sweden Luleå April 2006 Abstract Rail lubrication in curves was widely introduced in Sweden during the 1970’s due to the high wear rate of gauge faces in sharp curves. The first tests performed in Sweden showed that lubrication decreased wear rates by roughly 10 times. Based upon these results, the Swedish track system was equipped with wayside lubricators called Clicomatic. Aside from wear, rolling contact fatigue (RCF) is another limiting factor in railway infrastructure productivity. Head checking is one of the fatigue forms that arises in curves of heavily loaded tracks as well as fast train tracks. Head checkings grow at the rail head, close to the gauge corner. High pressure and a sliding motion lead to plastic strain of the material from the rail ball towards the gauge face. There is a coupling between wear rates and RCF damages, high wear rates may lead to reduced RCF damages and vice versa. Hence, frequent application of lubricants to the rail does extend the rail life by several times but may, on the other hand, lead to fatigue problems. Preventive grinding in combination with lubrication has been the most efficient way to avoid fast degrading of curved rail track. This thesis concerns the progress of rail lubrication in terms of how environmentally adapted lubricants function both in wayside lubricators and at the track. Another aspect of the thesis is to find a lubricant able to reduce the wear rate at the gauge face while simultaneously decreasing the crack growth at the rail head. One thought was to use controlled wear to reduce rolling contact fatigue. Controlled wear in this situation means that the usage of a lubricant should give a sufficiently high wear rate to continuously wear off the surface layers. Another idea along the same lines was that of low contact friction. Low friction in the contact gives less plastic strain and subsequently less head checking. Rapeseed oil had shown low contact friction in earlier testing, therefore, synthetic esters were of interest to examine in this application. From both field tests and laboratory tests it was concluded that the wear protection for environmentally adapted lubricants was comparable to that of previously used lubricants if they were applied by trackside lubricators. Although they were known to be more sensitive to low temperatures, testing showed how to overcome this issue. Wear and friction tests were performed in the laboratory to evaluate lubricating blends. The tests evaluated rolling / sliding as well as pure sliding contacts. The research performed in this thesis yielded the following results. Pure synthetic ester (TMP-Oleat and TMP-C8-C10) in a sliding contact resulted in high wear rates and a lot of abrasive marks at the surface. By adding friction modifiers, the friction as well as the wear rate decreased considerably in the sliding contact. In the rolling sliding contact, synthetic ester alone and synthetic ester with the addition of friction modifiers both showed similarly low friction and wear rates. PAO gave higher friction, but at the same time, the surfaces had significantly fewer cracks as compared to synthetic ester formulations. One observation was that surfaces lubricated by synthetic esters became less hard and the hardness interval was wider than those lubricated with PAO. One explanation is that even if the overall friction is low, local spots of high friction between asperities can lead to localized strain and crack initiation. The conclusions are that Rapeseed oil is the recommended base for rail lubricants. The tested synthetic esters are a more expensive alternative useful if excellent low temperature properties are needed. Graphite is not necessary in the lubricant if it is applied continuously by a wayside lubricator. Twin-disc tests showed that low contact friction does not necessary mean that crack initiations are avoided in the surface. In conclusion, the base fluid and the additives influenced not only the wear rate but also the ability for cracks to grow. Acknowledgments This work has been carried out at the Division of Machine Elements, Department of Mechanical Engineering at Luleå University of Technology under the supervision of Professor Erik Höglund. The project was financed through JVTC, the railroad research centre located at the university. It was funded by several member companies including Banverket, who took an active roll in my research. When I started my Ph.D. studies in 1998, I felt young and enthusiastic. I was able to dedicate a lot of time to my study of surfaces and wear. The environment at the university, with so much equipment waiting to be explored, was perfect for an enthusiastic soul. But many winds have blown since I began this project. I met my wife in 2000 and we had 2 daughters. But the past 2 years have been very hard for me and my family. My oldest daughter, Matilda, was found to be seriously sick and she died at the age of 3 in May 2005. I thank my wife, Anneli, for her support during this time. Dr. P-O Larsson-Kråik has been my co-supervisor during my Ph.D. studies. I actually met P-O in 1990. He was commanding officer in the army during the summer of my service. Seven years later, it was he who suggested that I start my studies as a Ph.D. student. He has been a great source of knowledge about tribology and all sorts of practical matters. But P-O also has a humanistic and social side that I appreciate very much. Furthermore, I would like to thank my supervisor, Professor Erik Höglund, as well as Professor Braham Prakash and Professor Tomas Norrby; all of whom have helped me with my research. In all, my time at the university has been fantastic. I have enjoyed spending time with my colleagues at work and in my spare time and I thank them all for their help and support. It has been an incredible time and I believe we will always keep in touch! Time has passed and it is now 2005. The enthusiasm is still here but I have definitely grown a few years older. Luleå, October 2005 Patric Waara Dedicated to the memory of my loved daugther Matilda Appended papers: A P. Waara, P-O Larsson, Grease behaviour in a rail lubricating system exposed to arctic conditions, Pres. at the 11th ELGI Annual general meeting, 1999, Oslo. B P. Waara, Lubricant influence on flange wear in sharp railroad curves, Industrial lubrication and tribology, Vol 53, No. 4 (2001), pp 161-168. C T. Åhrén, P. Waara, and P-O Larsson, Technical and Economical Evaluation of Maintenance for Rail and Wheels on Malmbanan, Proc. From Int. Heavy Haul Association 2003 Specialist Technical Session, Dallas, USA, pp 5.81-5.86. D P. Waara, J. Hannu, T. Norrby and Å. Byheden, Additive influence on wear and friction performance of environmentally adapted lubricants, Tribology Int., 34 (2001), pp 547- 556. E P. Waara, T. Norrby, B. Prakash, Tribochemical wear in rail flanges lubricated by synthetic ester based model lubricants, Tribology Letters, Vol. 17, No. 3 October 2004. F P. Waara, P-O Larsson Kråik, A. Kapoor, Rail/Wheel steel lubricated by ester based model lubricants in a rolling/sliding contact, Submitted for publication. Contents 1 Introduction _____________________________________________________________________ 2 1.1 The wheel/rail interface ________________________________________________________ 2 1.2 Tribology ___________________________________________________________________ 3 1.3 Lubricant effect on the track_____________________________________________________ 4 1.4 Application technology for rail lubrication _________________________________________ 6 1.5 The environment______________________________________________________________ 6 1.6 Crack propagation ____________________________________________________________ 7 1.7 The relation between wear and rolling contact fatigue (RCF)___________________________ 8 2 Outline of the thesis ______________________________________________________________ 10 3 Experimental methods and results __________________________________________________ 11 3.1 Laboratory wear tests on environmentally adapted greases (paper A) ___________________ 11 3.1.1 The Plint & Partner high frequency machine ____________________________________ 11 3.1.2 Lubricants and setup conditions ______________________________________________ 12 3.1.3 Results of laboratory wear tests_______________________________________________ 13 3.2 Field wear test on environmentally adapted greases (paper B)_________________________ 14 3.2.1 Field test arrangement ______________________________________________________ 14 3.2.2 The Miniprof measuring device_______________________________________________ 14 3.2.3 Results from field test ______________________________________________________ 15 3.3 The influence of grinding and wear on rail life (paper C) _____________________________ 16 3.3.1 Evaluation method_________________________________________________________ 16 3.3.2 Rail life based upon wear and grinding _________________________________________ 17 3.4 EP and AW additives influence on wear using synthetic esters (paper D)_________________ 18 3.4.1 Lubricant blends for the test matrix____________________________________________