https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/201714007009
Wear of sharp aggregates in a rotating drum
1 Université Grenoble Alpes, 3SR, F-38000 Grenoble, France
2 CNRS, 3SR, F-38000 Grenoble, France
3 SNCF Réseau, Direction Ingénierie & Projets, 93574 La Plaine Saint Denis, France
* Corresponding author: ivan.deiros@3sr-grenoble.fr
Published online: 30 June 2017
Aggregates constituting ballast layer wear due to the continuous passage of trains and during the necessary maintenance operations of the track. In order to develop efficient solutions for ballasted tracks design and maintenance, a proper knowledge of the degradation laws of ballast grains is needed. In tribology, the amount of wear due to friction when two surfaces are in contact is classically predicted by Archard’s equation. However, due to the continuous evolution of grain angularity and roughness, at the macro-scale wear coefficient cannot be assumed to remain constant, but will depend on the state of degradation of the grain surface. In order to adjust the model to this particular case, the Micro-Deval Attrition test is used. The rotating drum is stopped at intermediate stages and the amount of generated fine particles is measured. Thus the curve of mass loss along time is built. These results are then linked to Archard’s model using the values of contact forces and relative displacements extracted from discrete element simulations. Finally, a morphology analysis is performed tracking shape and roughness parameters at different stages of degradation using X-ray tomography and a laser profilometer.
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2017
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
