Progress in Plasma Processing of Materials, 2001

ISBN Print: 1-56700-165-3

THE CONTROL OF RAILWAY WHEEL MATERIAL PROPERTIES USING NITROGEN PLASMATRON

DOI: 10.1615/ITPPC-2000.960
pages 737-742

要約

A plasma hardening and nitriding technique is used during 5 years already for improvement of field-performance characteristics of railway wheels by Moscow Raylways. A comparison of field-performance characteristics of plain and plasma treated wheel sets may be performed now on the basis of statistics using a great body of measured data, because up to now more than 21000 wheel sets are subjected to plasma treatment, and in the database the information is gathered from more than 200000 measurements. This paper deals with plasma treatment on the material research level, using segment of a real railway wheel tire with elevated sulphur content as an object of investigation. The goal of investigation is an assessment of the influence of power input N, gas flow rate G and the speed of treatment V on the parameters of micro- and macrostructure, hardness, resistance to destruction and phase composition of plasma treated zone of tire in order to develop a scientifically grounded technology of plasma treatment.