Laboratory Assessment of Lubricants for Wheel/Rail Lubrication

The antiwear properties of two wheel/rail lubricating oils were tested and compared on an Amsler machine. Under same testing conditions, oil A (developed by authors) showed much better wear resistance and higher load-carrying capacity than oil B (imported from abroad). The X-ray diffraction (XRD) analyses of the worn surfaces showed that different extreme pressure (EP) lubricating films were formed on the surfaces when the rollers were lubricated with different oils under boundary Iubrication condition. The EP film of oil A was a composite film containing three compounds, FeO, FeSx and FeP, while oil B formed only a simple EP film of FePO4. The composite EP film showed lower shear strength and better antiwear property than the simple EP film,which brought about different wear resistance of the two wheel/rail lubricating oils.