Ball or roller bearings have much in common with a railway wheel running on a rail. Both have high Hertzian stresses and are subject to rolling contact fatigue. Silicone Nitride, a Technical Ceramic, has now firmly established itself in the engineering marketplace as part of a hybrid bearing, where the rolling elements are silicone nitride and the races are steel. The paper explores the possibility of a Silicon Nitride/steel wheel/rail combination and finds that, because Silicon Nitride has a higher Modulus of Elasticity, it is not suitable as a direct replacement on existing systems, because it would produce a smaller contact patch and greater contact stress. The low toughness of Silicon Nitride in comparison to steel could be an obstacle to its general railway use, however, it could made into a composite material in the same manner as Carbon Reinforced Silicon Carbide is used in brake discs. There is a possibility that, under the right conditions, Silicon Nitride could return very low wear rates, because of its extreme hardness, and because it's excellent resistance to rolling contact fatigue noted in hybrid bearings. This could give a wheel high mileage, without the need to remove fatigued material by controlled wear or by turning. A promising future application for the material is a cablehauled system, where the predicted lower adhesion between Silicon Nitride and a steel rail is not a problem and the wheels are not required to be conductive.


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    Titel :

    Exploring the potential for the application of ceramic bearing technology to the wheel/rail interface


    Beteiligte:


    Erscheinungsdatum :

    2007


    Format / Umfang :

    7 Seiten, 4 Bilder, 2 Tabellen, 4 Quellen



    Medientyp :

    Aufsatz (Konferenz)


    Format :

    Print


    Sprache :

    Englisch




    JRC/ICE2007-40043 Exploring the Potential for the Application of Ceramic Bearing Technology to the Wheel/Rail Interface

    Arnold, G. E. / American Society of Mechanical Engineers | British Library Conference Proceedings | 2007


    Exploring the Potential for a Technical Ceramic (Silicon Nitride) in the Wheel/Rail Interface

    American Public Transportation Association | British Library Conference Proceedings | 2007


    Technology Primer: The wheel-rail interface

    British Library Online Contents | 1997


    Wheel/rail interface

    Europoint BV, Zeist | TIBKAT | 2014


    The Wheel-Rail Interface

    Tzanakakis, Konstantinos | Springer Verlag | 2013