TY - JOUR A1 - Otremba, Frank A1 - Romero-Navarrete, José A. T1 - A lowering friction treatment for railway materials JF - Advanced materials letters N2 - A facility is proposed in this paper to apply a selective carburizing process to the lateral faces of a railways´ head, aiming to increase its carbon content and to decrease the friction coefficient in case that the flange of the railway car wheel gets in contact with the rail during turning. Such a treatment would reduce the energy that is lost during the turning maneuvers performed by the vehicle, further improving the energy efficiency of the railway car. The facility consists of a furnace, which should be set next to the rails´ hot-rolling facility, in order to use the available enthalpy. The proposed furnace is equipped with what is necessary to avoid the decarbonization of the remaining rail material, based upon batteries of oxy-acetylene burners that are installed at the bottom of the furnace, on the opposite side to the carburizing surface. An experimental facility is necessary to validate the operational principles for the equipment proposed in this paper. On the other hand, a study should also be carried out to assess the effect of any rail welding process on the carburized surfaces. KW - Transport efficiency KW - Dry friction KW - Carburizing KW - Selective carburizing KW - Decarbonization KW - Furnace design PY - 2020 DO - https://doi.org/10.5185/amlett.2020.041498 VL - 11 IS - 4 SP - 2004198 PB - IAAM - VRBI Press AN - OPUS4-50958 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -