Open Access Conference Proceedings

To ensure proper maintenance and remaining lifespan of railway axles it is important to correctly estimate its mechanical properties. In past many methods were introduced and standardized. However conventional methods often require samples to be extracted from examined parts which inevitably leads to destruction of said part. Recently featured Advanced Indentation System enables quasi-non-destructive testing and evaluation of tensile properties either in-situ or in laboratory environment.This paper deals with characterization of hardness and tensile properties of railway axle made of EA4T steel using Advances Indentation System. While standard methods of hardness evaluation use optical microscopy and size of indent, indentation system uses depth of indent as main parameter for calculations. For evaluating tensile properties instrumented indentation technique (IIT) was used. Load-depth curves were obtained from loading-unloading cycles and later used to analyse tensile properties. The results were compared with standard Vickers hardness tests and data given by standards for railway axles and EA4T steel. Experimental data suggests that indentation method is suitable substitute for conventional methods of hardness and tensile properties.

Keywords: Vickers hardness, mechanical properties, advanced indentation system, EA4T steel, railway axle

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