The repeated thermal load on the railway wheel for tread brakes has been remarkably tightened due to increase in speed of trains and increase of operation frequency. As overheating and cooling between the wheel and brake block are continuously repeated, the railway wheel is damaged. To understand the process, thermal cracks for wheel tread can be experimentally reproduced under the condition of cyclic frictional heat from brake blocks, through bench experiments using a railway wheel. Thermal cracks generated in the wheel were investigated to observe the cracks’ initiation processes using full-scale brake dynamometer. Results show that as braking energy and braking temperature continued to accumulate, a hot spot appeared on the wheel surface and 2 mm of thermal crack occurred in the wheel rim.

Shot peening is widely used to improve the fatigue life and strength of various mechanical parts and an accurate method is important for the prediction of the compressive residual stress caused by this process. A finite element (FE) model with an elliptical multi-shot is suggested for random-angled impacts. Solutions for compressive residual stress using this model and a normal random vertical-impact one with a spherical multi-shot are obtained and compared. The elliptical multi-shot experimental solution is closer to an X-ray diffraction (XRD) than the spherical one. The FE model’s peening coverage also almost reaches the experimental one. The effectiveness of the model based on an elliptical shot ball is confirmed by these results and it can be used instead of previous FE models to evaluate the compressive residual stress produced on the surface of metal by shot peening in various industries.