Abstract:
This study addresses the demand for high-friction-coefficient steel materials in railway parking anti-runaway devices and proposes a rail composite strengthening strategy based on TiC steel-bonded cemented carbide. TiC steel-bonded cemented carbide/steel composites were fabricated by a powder metallurgy–casting coupling process, and their microstructural evolution and tribological properties were systematically investigated. The results show that the powder metallurgy method produced steel-bonded cemented carbide with uniformly distributed TiC and good interfacial bonding. After casting, a sound metallurgical bond formed between the TiC steel-bonded cemented carbide and the steel matrix, and the microhardness increased from approximately 306±18 Hv in the steel matrix region to about 943±40 HV in the cemented carbide region. Tribological tests showed that the instantaneous friction coefficient of the composite was higher than that of the pure rail steel, reaching 0.5–0.6, with only slight damage on the worn surface and fine particulate wear debris. This improvement is attributed to the mechanical barrier formed by the protruding particles in the cemented carbide region after the surrounding low-strength steel matrix softens; this barrier effectively bears the frictional stress, thereby enhancing the tribological performance.