Shattered rim and shelling of high-speed railway wheels in the very-high-cycle fatigue regime under rolling contact loading

Due to the improvement of the wear property, rolling contact fatigue including shattered rim and shelling are the main failure causes of the high-speed railway wheels. In this paper, shattered rim and shelling occurred on the service wheels of the China Railway High-speed (CRH) trains were systematically investigated. The recorded data of the last ten years CRH operation indicated that all shattered rims and shelling were detected with serving >106 km (corresponding to the fatigue life 107–109 cycles) which is very-high-cycle fatigue (VHCF). The crack initiation region of shattered rim located at the depth of 10–25 mm from the tread, while that of shelling located at the depth