Development of Promising Steels for Railway Rails of a New Generation Using Modeling of Phase-Structural Transformations

Based on recent research, it is known that the strength of pearlitic rail steels has reached its limit. On the basis of the literature analysis, the steels used in the world practice for production of bainite railway rails have been identified and their comparison with the chemical composition of steels used in various areas in the world has been carried out. Regularities of austenite decomposition kinetics of 30HGS steel grade with 0.28% C, 1.49% Si, 0.92% Mn, 0.99% Cr have been investigated by the method of mathematical modeling. Analytically, using the developed model, the intervals of cooling rates, within which changes in the mechanism of structure formation during the decay of austenite are observed, are determined. Chemical composition of experimental steels for railway rails was developed and ingots were melted in laboratory conditions with fixing of cooling rate with subsequent study of microstructures.