Failure Analysis on Bearings of Railway Freight Cars with Tilting Bogie

Abstract

Causes are investigated on earlier failures of the bearings for China railway freight cars with tilting bogie. Through dissembling failure objects, checking manufacturing qualities and calculating rolling contact fatigue (RCF) stresses, it reveals that RCF plays a key role to the bearing failures. Design mismatch of the RCF stresses between outer and inner rings is main cause of the earlier failures of bearings. It is further verified that the present earlier failures of the bearings on the cars with tilting bogie than others on cars without tilting bogie is a reasonable phenomenon, because the wheelsets on the cars with the tilting are subjected to more severe loads. In addition, material manufacturing flaws, inhomogeneous force transferring circumstances, and seal leak may play an aided role to speed up the bearings failures.