Measurement of the residual stresses in the treads of railway wheels by the acoustoelasticity method

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Measurement of the residual stresses in the treads of railway wheels by the acoustoelasticity method

Kamyshev, A.V. / Nikitina, N.E. / Smirnov, V.A.

A method for measuring mechanical stresses is actively being developed; it is based on the acoustoelasticity effect, which represents the dependence of elastic wave propagation velocity in a tested object on its mechanical stresses. The practical implementation of the acoustoelasticity effect consists in precision measurement of ultrasound velocity in a stressed material and comparison of the measurement results with the data on its initial (unstressed) state. In particular, after thermal processing, the compressive residual stresses in the tread of a railway wheel must be zero along its internal side and 80-150 MPa along its external side according to the NF EN European Standard. The acoustoelasticity method has been indicated as advisable for measuring these stresses. In this work, we present data on the residual stresses measured in the treads of 957 mm diameter railway wheels using a nondestructive ultrasonic method on a 5101A device. The measurement results show that the residual stresses are compressive and modulo increasing from the center to the periphery for each tested point. The reliability of the data is confirmed by a destructive method (cutting a wheel along its axis).