Study on the Influence of Sand Erosion Process on the Wear and Damage of Heat-Treated U75V Rail Steel

Usually, rail materials are exactly affected by the erosion of windblown sand in the desert environment. For this reason, the influence of impact angle, particle velocity, and particle size on the erosion wear behavior of the U75V heat-treated rail steel, a material frequently employed in Chinese railways, were studied in this work. The results showed that, with increasing impact angle, the erosion rate increased between 15 deg and 45 deg, decreased between 45 deg and 75 deg, and then increased again between 75 deg and 90 deg. The highest erosion rate occurred at about 45 deg. When the particle velocity increased, the erosion rate increased approximately in a quadratic way. As the sand particle size increased, the erosion rate presented a decreasing trend. During the initial stage of erosion, shear craters, indentation craters, and ploughing craters were the main surface damage features. The shear craters predominated at the impact angle of 45 deg whereas the indentation craters predominated at 90 deg. During the steady-state of erosion, the rail damage was mainly composed of craters, platelets, and cracks. Both the length and depth of craters increased almost linearly with increasing particle velocity, whereas the increased rate of length was significantly higher than that of depth. The length and depth of craters increased with increasing particle size at 90 deg, whereas only the length increased with increasing particle size at 45 deg. The microstructure evolution and the formation mechanism of platelet at low impact angles were different from those at high impact angles. Platelet formation was the main erosion wear mechanism.