Engineering Failure Analysis 14 (2007) 884894

www.elsevier.com/locate/engfailanal

Failures of bearings and axles in railway freight wagons

a,*
Viktor Gerdun , Tomaz Sedmak b, Viktor Sinkovec c, Igor Kovse d, Bojan Cene e

a
TUV Bayern Sava d.o.o., Likozarjeva 14, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
b
Road maintenance and Protection Cestno podjetje Ljubljana d.d., Povsetova 10, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
c
Slovenian Railways Slovenske zeleznice d.d., Kolodvorska 11, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
d
Institute for Metal Constructions lMK, Mencingerjeva 7, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
e
Ministry of Transport Transport Inspectorate of the Republic of Slovenia, Trzaska 19a, p.p. 355, SI-1001 Ljubljana, Slovenia

Received 2 June 2006; accepted 19 November 2006

Available online 16 January 2007

Abstract

The article deals with two cases of failures in freight wagon cylindrical roller bearings and axles. In the rst case, the
failure caused a major destruction of the railway line. Determining the cause of the failure was a dicult task, as the mate-
rial was rather deformed by the damage and modied due to high temperatures. Therefore only a most probable expla-
nation of this case was given at rst for lack of an exact answer. A few months later the bearing of another wagon
failed. This failure was detected on time, so that no axle failure or major damage occurred. Here the material was not that
much deformed and modied due to high temperature, so it was possible to determine the cause of failure. Based on this,
the circumstances governing the rst case could later be fully explained.
2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Cylindrical roller bearing; Damages; Wagon axle; Railways; Microstructure; Fatigue fracture; Liquid-metal embrittlement

1. Introduction

In the beginning of 2003, a failure occurred on a freight wagon that had been in service for about 30 years.
The wagon of 80 ton capacity had been designed for the transportation of liquid fuels. Its under-carriage con-
sisted of two bogies with two wheel pairs each, which carried the complete weight of the wagon. The design of
the wheel pair is shown in Fig. 1. The wheels were borne on cylindrical roller bearings at positions marked by
the beginning and end of the arrow in this Figure; the bearing is shown in more detail in Fig. 2. The complete
wagon rested on axle-box housings. The wheel-pair axle had a diameter of 160+2 mm between wheels, and
120 mm in the bearing area with p6 treatment tolerance. The monobloc interference t diameter was
185 mm. The wagons weight produced a bending moment in the wheel pair, as shown schematically in Fig. 6.
At the beginning of service, the wagon was tted with axles and inner rings of bearings. During the service,
the wheel pairs were repaired approximately every 5 years. Also the bearings were checked each time, and the
rollers, bearing cages and outer rings were checked and replaced, as appropriate, and the rolling surfaces of the

*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +386 1 3006145; fax: +386 1 2313752.
E-mail address: vgerdun@tuv.si (V. Gerdun).

1350-6307/$ - see front matter 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.engfailanal.2006.11.044
 V. Gerdun et al. / Engineering Failure Analysis 14 (2007) 884894 885

Fig. 1. Freight wagon wheel pair.

Fig. 2. Wheel-pair bearing of a freight wagon.

wheels were turned. The lubricant was also changed each time. The inner rings of bearings were not replaced.
In addition, the axles were ultrasonic tested each time. The last checking and replacing of bearing parts was
carried out in 1999. The wagon was in service all the time and made an average of 80,000 km per year. In a
failure, which occurred in the beginning of 2003, the wagons bearing and axle were destroyed, and about 8 km
of railway line were ruined. The event is hereinafter referred to as case A. A few months later, a bearing
failure was detected in another wagon, and the wagon was withdrawn from service. In this case there was
no other damage. This event is hereinafter referred to as case B.

2. Examinations and results

2.1. Examination of case A

At the beginning of the examination it was established that the axle had a double bearing and that its
dimensions corresponded to the data stated in Section 1. The inner and outer rings of the inner bearing,
the inner bearing cage, the top of the outer bearing cage, the rollers at the upper part of both bearings and
the inside of the axle-box housing were completely destroyed. The axle was deformed and broken (see Figs.
35 and 7). The outer ring of the outer bearing was not deformed. The oxidized dry surface of the complete
area indicated that very high temperatures had developed during the damage. The question was whether the
failure had occurred rst on the axle, and then as a result on the bearing, or vice versa, rst on the bearing and
then on the axle.
886 V. Gerdun et al. / Engineering Failure Analysis 14 (2007) 884894

Fig. 3. Case A damaged inner bearing and axle-box housing of the wagon.

Fig. 4. Case A damaged inner bearing of the wagon.

Fig. 5. Case A wear of inner surface of the inner bearings ring due to the sliding of the axle in it.

It seemed that the axle had broken exactly in the bearing area, i.e. at the spot where the bending moment is
at its minimum or zero. The bending moment increases from the bearing towards the wheel, where it reaches
its maximum value and remains constant along the axis towards the other wheel, where it falls to zero at the
other bearing (Fig. 6). If the axle had broken rst, that would have happened because of fatigue, and the
expected breaking spot would have been somewhere between the wheels, but this was not what had happened.
The possibility of fatigue damage of the axle was also excluded by the fact that the axle was strongly deformed
 V. Gerdun et al. / Engineering Failure Analysis 14 (2007) 884894 887

Fig. 6. Bending moment along the axis of the axle.

Fig. 7. Case A the broken piece of the axle. The deformation of the axle along the circumference due to sliding can be seen. In the
peripheral part of the fracture the depth of penetration of liquid brass can be seen (marked by arrow). The area of nal fracture due to
shearing deformation is in the middle, where concentric circles can be seen.

at the spot of fracture in the form of concentric circles (Fig. 7), which meant that it had broken through shear-
ing plastic deformation caused by a rotational force. This, however, contradicted the fatigue principle. Chem-
ical analysis of the axles material showed that it had been made from appropriate material of A1 quality
according to the railway regulations [1]. The mechanical characteristics could not be compared against the
requirements for this material, since the microstructure was modied due to the heat that had developed at
the damage. A Widmannstatten structure [2] had developed as a result of cooling of the over-heated steel
in the air (Fig. 9). Based on this it was estimated that the temperature must have exceeded 900 C or even
1000 C. There was another interesting detail found at the spot of axle fracture: the breaking surface in the
888 V. Gerdun et al. / Engineering Failure Analysis 14 (2007) 884894

Fig. 8. Case A etched longitudinal section of the axle. Like in Fig. 7, the depth of the fracture on the outer side due to contact with liquid
metal can be seen (marked by arrow), and the nal fracture due to shearing deformation in the middle.

Fig. 9. Case A Widmannstatten structure of the axle in the vicinity of fracture.

Fig. 10. Case A brass on the fractured surface of the axle in the peripheral area, which is marked by arrow in Fig. 8.
 V. Gerdun et al. / Engineering Failure Analysis 14 (2007) 884894 889

Fig. 11. Case A cracks lled with brass on a non-etched sample in the outer part of the axle below the fracture, i.e. in the area, which is
marked by arrow in Fig. 8.

Fig. 12. Case A the cracks lled with brass in the outer part of the axle below the fracture, i.e. in the area, which is marked by arrow in
Fig. 8.

peripheral area was without visible plastic deformation into the depth of about 25 mm (Figs. 7 and 8). In this
section a microscopic examination showed the presence of brass on the surface, while there were several micro
cracks under the surface lled with brass (Figs. 1012). Obviously the brass cage had started to melt in the
bearing area due to high temperatures. The liquid phase had run between the bearing rings to the axle surface.
When it had come into contact with the hot axle with austenitic microstructure, it caused the development of
brittle cracks in it and the penetration of liquid brass into these cracks. This phenomenon is known as liquid
metal embrittlement [3]. It involves the embrittlement of usually tough metals when they come into contact
with liquid metal. This was another proof to the fact that the axle had only broken later, when everything was
hot due to friction. The broken axle had been slowly pulled upwards and out of the inner bearing. This had
also caused the heating and deformation of the steel-cast axle-box housing in this area (Fig. 3). Because of the
strong mutual deformation between the housing and the axle, the heated axle had broken due to deformation
yet at another spot towards the wheel. There was no trace of brass found at this second fracture; neither were
there any cracks lled with brass under the surface. The heated axle could not have broken again in this area
otherwise than by plastic deformation.
So we were left with the fact that rst the bearing had failed and then the axle, and at the same time with the
question, what had been the cause?
It is generally known that bearing damages occur because of [4]:

 Improper lubrication. This can be caused by improper lubricant, insucient lubrication, excessive lubrica-
tion or invasion of impurities into the bearing area.
 Excessive load and, as a result, fatigue damages on rolling surfaces and rolling elements.
890 V. Gerdun et al. / Engineering Failure Analysis 14 (2007) 884894

 Excessive rotation speed.

 Inadequate mechanical properties.
 Insucient operating clearance.
 Radial stress caused by an external source of heat.
 Obstructed run due to the breaking of the cage.
 Initial damages of the bearing.

Initially, it seemed most probable that an overheating of the bearing had occurred because of improper
lubrication or because of cage damage, which would have obstructed the running of the rollers. This proba-
bility could neither be conrmed nor denied, as the lubricant had completely burnt down due to high temper-
atures, the cage of the inner bearing was completely destroyed, and a part of the cage of the outer bearing was
molten. The rollers seemed to have been relatively evenly distributed. Cage damages can otherwise be caused
through installation, through exceeded rotation speed, through insucient lubrication, or through vibrations
and shocks, which mean additional load. During the entire service time of the freight wagon there had been no
overloading or exceeding of speed limit. All the time the wagon had been transporting liquid fuels of known
mass and had been running at an average speed of 80 km/h. Also, no wear of the binding elements of the cage
have were found which could have caused irregular run and wear of the rollers at some places only. As the
cage had been made of ductile two-phase (a + b) brass (Fig. 13), there was little probability that a fracture
of the cage and the consequent damage would have occurred after ve years of service since the last repair
of the bearing. Based on all the above-described facts, the damage of the cage was therefore excluded as
the primary cause of failure.
The rolling surface of the outer ring of the outer bearing, which had not suered any mechanical damage,
showed no pitting. There were slight lines or traces in the rolling direction on the surface, which normally
develop in all bearings due to interaction between the roller surfaces and the ring (Fig. 14). Therefore the pos-
sibility of inadequate mechanical properties of the bearing was also excluded, and so were overloading, too
tight matching of the bearing, presence of foreign particles and corrosion. It was impossible to nd out the
mechanical properties of the bearing before the damage, since the rings and rollers were tempered and even
transformed due to heat. At some spots tempered martensite and primary carbides were found, and at other
pearlite and primary carbides (Fig. 15). The original microstructure had most certainly consisted of martensite
and primary carbides, which is quite usual for this type of bearings. There had also been no overheating of the
bearing due to side-face friction of the rollers at axial load. No wear has been observed on the side faces of the
rollers.
The following could be observed in the inner rings of bearings. The top of the inner ring of inner bearing
was fractured and had one additional crack (Fig. 4). The inner ring of outer bearing had broken into several
pieces. All these pieces had a groove, which had been caused by the rollers pressing against the strongly heated
and softened inner ring (Fig. 16). The inner surfaces of the inner rings were also strongly deformed because of
the sliding of the axle in them (Fig. 5). These surfaces as well as the surface of the axle (Fig. 7) clearly showed

Fig. 13. Case A microstructure of the brass cage a + b phase and inclusions of lead.
 V. Gerdun et al. / Engineering Failure Analysis 14 (2007) 884894 891

Fig. 14. Case A rolling surface of the outer ring of outer bearing.

Fig. 15. Case A microstructure of the top of the outer bearing roller, which had been heated to such an extent that a transformation of
the microstructure (pearlite + primary carbides) took place.

Fig. 16. Case A inner ring of outer bearing. Deep grooves can be seen, which developed in the heated material.

that the axle had been turning in the rings, as, from a certain moment, there had no longer been any tight
matching between the axle and the rings. The question was, had the rings broken due to strong deformation
while the damage of the bearing was developing, or had they been broken before? The fact was that they had
been so ductile due to heating that the rollers had made deep grooves in them, while the rollers were less
deformed. So, if they had broken during the development of the damage, while they were heated and ductile,
the question was, why had not they just deformed, which would have been the more probable outcome in such
circumstances? Obviously, it had all started to warm up when the axle started turning in the rings. The axle
and the inner rings had been the most heated. The heat had spread on, but it had not heated the rollers as
892 V. Gerdun et al. / Engineering Failure Analysis 14 (2007) 884894

Fig. 17. Case B the axle and the damaged inner ring of inner bearing (examined on 8 May 2003).

much as the rings, so the rings were more deformed and grooved. It became clear that the bearing had been
overheated and completely destroyed because the axle had started sliding in the inner rings. This excluded the
possibility of overheating due to improper lubrication. Such was the most probable explanation of the case,
although the reason for the sliding of the axle could not be determined with certainty as yet.

2.2. Examination of case B

A few months later a similar bearing failed in another wagon. An examination of this case (Case B) has
shown the following: The inner rings of both bearings were broken. The axle had already been turning in
them, too. Deformation could already be seen on its surface (Fig. 17). The bearing was full of lubricant
(Fig. 20). A smaller piece had split o the inner ring of inner bearing causing damage to the inner cage.
The case was similar to Case A, the dierence being in that the wagon was stopped on time and that no such
destruction as in Case A occurred.
Such fractures as those in the inner rings could only have developed through gradual propagation of a
crack under fatigue (Figs. 18 and 19). This has also been conrmed by an image of the fractured surface in
Fig. 21. The main cracks had developed at the spot with highest concentration of stresses, which produced
a fracture over the entire ring. After the fracture the ring widened; it started obstructing the rollers and occa-
sionally slid on them. Due to the widening of the broken ring, sliding occurred between the axle and the ring
and the bearing started heating itself. The pieces split o the inner rings and the obstructed rolling later caused
damage to the cages.

Fig. 18. Case B fractures of the inner ring of inner bearing (examined on 8 May 2003).
 V. Gerdun et al. / Engineering Failure Analysis 14 (2007) 884894 893

Fig. 19. Case B fracture of the inner ring of outer bearing (examined on 8 May 2003).

Fig. 20. Case B damaged cage of inner bearing. The outer cage and the rollers have not been damaged yet (examined on 8 May 2003).

Fig. 21. Case B fractographic image of fracture surface of the inner ring.
894 V. Gerdun et al. / Engineering Failure Analysis 14 (2007) 884894

It was now clear that in both cases it had all started with a fatigue fracture of the inner rings that had been
in service too long, i.e. for about 30 years.

3. Conclusions

The examination has proven that the failures were caused by fatigue fractures of the inner rings of the bear-
ings. These had been in place too long, so that their dynamic strength was exceeded. Because of this the rings
widened and the axle started sliding in them. Because of the friction, the bearing started warming up. Split-o
pieces of the rings and obstructed rolling also caused damage to the cages. In Case A, where the damage of the
bearing was not detected on time, a part of the bearing heated to such an extent that the brass cage began to
melt. Also the axle heated up to the austenitic area. Liquid brass, which owed between the rings to the axle
surface, caused cracks in the outer part of the axle and a decrease of the loading cross-section. As, due to the
high temperature, also the strength of the axle decreased, it was torn apart through shearing deformation. As
the axle turned and slid against the axle-box housing, it deformed the axle-box housing and broke at yet
another spot. Then it fell with one side onto the railway line and caused the destruction of a part of the line.
The above-described failures can be prevented through a more frequent replacement of the inner rings of
bearings. Besides, cages made of brass are inappropriate. They melt down quickly, when it comes to damage
and consequently to heating of bearings, and they get into contact with the heated axle. This causes cracks in
the axle, which additionally decrease its capacity. As a result, the axle breaks faster than it would if the cages
were made of some other material.

References

[1] UIC. 811-1 Technical specication for the supply of axles for tractive and trailing stock 4th ed. of 1.1.87 with sulphur prints EN 13261
Railway applications Wheelsets and bogies Axles Product requirements.
[2] ASM. Handbook vol. 9. Metallography and microstructures, ASM international; 1985. pp. 195, 205, 213, 232.
[3] ASM. Handbook vol. 11. Failure analysis and prevention, ASM international, 1986, 490513 (Failures of rolling-element bearings),
715727 (Failures of locomotive axles).
[4] FAG: Walzlagerschaden Schadenserkennung und Begutachtung gelaufener Walzlager.