OREANDA-NEWS. February 01, 2010. The operation results show that the introduction of railroad wheels of enhanced hardness has a significant economic effect. The manufacturers of these innovative products never stop at what has been accomplished and develop new engineering solutions. This story was told in the following interview given by United Metallurgical Company President Vladimir Markin to The Gudok, reported the press-centre of OMK.

– Mr. Markin, how significant for OMK is its cooperation with Russian Railways?
– First of all, I would like to say that, in spite of the fact that the economic crisis has resulted in a two-fold decrease in rail transportation and, as a consequence, to a two-fold reduction in railroad wheel purchases, Vyksa Steel Works (part of OMK) is continuing with its program for modernization of production and development of state-of-the-art products with a view to the future railroad demand.

The capacity of Vyksa Steel Works enables them to produce more than 850 thousand railroad wheels a year to cover the needs of domestic companies and to export wheels to more than 30 countries. The company manufactures more than 140 types of wheels designed for freight and passenger cars, locomotives, and subway electric trains. The VSW Wheel-Rolling Facility is the world’s largest and most modern one. This is, to a large extent, the result of OMK’s long-term agreement with Russian Railways. When the recession is over, we, as before, will be able to fully meet the demand for high quality wheels in Russia and countries using the 1,520-mm gage track system. Russian Railways is our strategic partner. Our agreements are of immense importance. The parties are obliged to cooperate on a mutually profitable and economically equal basis. This primarily involves strict adherence to the contractual terms, including the issues of finished product value and quality, on the one side, and purchases, on the other.

– What is the practical effect of the introduction of wheels of enhanced hardness?
– According to data from the Russian Railways Rolling Stock Design Office, the introduction of wheels with 320–360 HB rim hardness brought about a dramatic reduction in current car uncoupling repairs resulting from defects of wheel sets, including a 1.5-fold reduction in repairs due to chips and a more than 3-fold reduction due to wheel flange defects. The use of VSW hard wheels resulted in a longer service life of Russian Railways’ wheel stock and a decrease in their demand for wheels.

Russian Railways enjoy an ever-increasing economic effect from using more and more hard wheels for their rolling stock. It is noteworthy that not a single fatigue fracture occurred over the 5-year period of VSW’s hard wheel shipments for the railroad system. In addition, under the policy for higher axle loads, new curvilinear-disk wheels have been developed and are supplied to car-building entities, enabling them to produce modern rolling stock capable of withstanding loads of 25 and 27–30 tonnes per axle. In this connection, hard-rim wheels with curvilinear disk exceed wheels with flat-cone disks for fatigue strength and service durability.

VSW experts and the All-Russian Railway Transport Research Institute have developed new generation L-steel wheels designed for passenger cars. Operational tests showed that these wheels are twice as durable as those currently used for passenger rolling stock. The L-steel wheels are certified by the public agency Certification Register for Federal Railroad Transportation of the Russian Federation. They are ready for shipments, but no orders have been placed for them so far. At present, our company is developing new low-stress wheels of the next generation. Similar hard-steel wheel designs developed by VSW experts for the Association of American Railroads enjoy an excellent operational reputation in the USA and Canada. This raises hopes that VSW’s new curvilinear-disk wheels, together with cars equipped with new trucks, will be equally effective on railroads in Russia. At present, the VSW Wheel-Rolling Facility is fully equipped for a serial production of unique for Russia wheels of a new generation, designed for freight and passenger cars and having enhanced application properties, including wheels made of bainitic steel and microalloy steel with rim hardness reaching 390 HB.

– Manufacture of innovative products also requires introduction of new technologies?
– Introduction of new types of wheels is impossible without an accompanying monitoring process. At present, OMK in joint efforts with NIIAS (The Russian Research and Development Institute for Informatization, Automation and Communications under the Ministry of Railroad Transportation of the Russian Federation) are creating a system for monitoring the life cycle of VSW-made wheels used in the Russian railroad system. The monitoring system will make it possible to evaluate, on a real-time basis, the application properties of VSW wheels throughout their service life and calculate the life cycle cost using actual data.

– Could you tell about your plans for the near future?
– On the whole, the VSW Innovative Development Program for 2010–2015, in terms of production of solid-rolled wheel and further enhancement of their quality, is aimed at mastering the manufacture of promising types of products, to optimize interacting processes in the wheel–rail tribosystem, and further reducing contact wear defects, and bringing wheel resource up to 1.5 million kilometers. In addition, I’d like to mention OMK’s new capacity. Specifically, for car repair purposes and for new cars, we can supply Russian Railways with sheet products made at Russia’s most state-of-the-art facilities for production of steel coils and sheets. I’m talking about not only currently used sheet products made of steels 09G2D/S, St3pp/ps, and 15 kp/ps, but also ones made of promising HSLA steels of enhanced strength with yield points of 400 MPa and higher. When we launch our new mill in 2011, our capacity to supply the most state-of-the-art sheet products will increase manifold.