Manufacturing Process and Future Prospects of Head Hardened Heat-treated Rails

경두 열처리 레일의 제조공정과 장래의 전망

The manufacturing processes of the head hardened rails and the principles of the heat treatment for carbon steels are introduced in this paper, To get the good wear resistance of the rail, many kinds of microstructure had been developed for the rail head hardening. One of these is the tempered martensitic structure, which is very hard but brittle because of Quenching-Tempering Process. Another is the fine pearlitic structure by Slack Quenching. Now Banitic structure steels are emerging as a potential new material to replace eutectoid pearlitic steels for rail. The main reason of this change is due to the limitaion of pearlitic microstructure with regard to mechanical properties and wear resistances of railway rails.