DELVING BENEATH THE SURFACE

Wheel impact load detectors (WILD) are commonly used to identify high-impact wheels for removal. However, the majority of broken wheels fail in service absent of high impacts as measured by WILD. While WILD is effective for finding out-of-round (OOR) wheels, it does not serve well at identifying whe...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Railway Age 2018-07, Vol.219 (7), p.31-31
Main Authors: Witte, Matthew, Poudel, Anish
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Crack propagation
Cracks
Fatigue cracks
Fatigue failure
Impact loads
Inspections
Load
Sensors
Trains
Wheels
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Summary:Wheel impact load detectors (WILD) are commonly used to identify high-impact wheels for removal. However, the majority of broken wheels fail in service absent of high impacts as measured by WILD. While WILD is effective for finding out-of-round (OOR) wheels, it does not serve well at identifying wheels with purely internal cracks. Wheels that break in service more often develop from subsurface discontinuities that do not affect the surface of the wheel until the wheel breaks; WILD is not the technology of choice for finding internal cracks. The mechanism of cracked wheel failure is quite different than OOR development. With internal discontinuities, fatigue cracks grow from the continuous cyclical loading that wheels undergo, particularly just below the tread where stresses are highest.
ISSN:0033-8826
2161-511X