A study was undertaken to evaluate the mechanical and material behaviour of the Q345 alloy, used in fabrication of five-piece mining wheel assemblies. Material samples were extracted from all components of a five-piece wheel. Material testing included compositional analyses, fully submerged corrosion testing, and microstructural analyses. Mechanical testing included hardness testing, tensile testing and stress-based high-cycle fatigue testing of specimens with polished and pre-corroded surface conditions. Special emphasis was placed on obtaining the fatigue behaviour of the alloy in the pre-corroded condition. Component microstructures were all found to consist of ferrite and colony pearlite. Ultimate tensile strengths of most component samples ranged from 471 MPa to 544 MPa, which was within minimum alloy specifications. Fatigue results found polished specimens and pre-corroded specimens to have endurance strengths of approximately 295 MPa and 222 MPa, respectively, at 5,000,000 cycles. The pre-corroded condition resulted in a decrease in fatigue strength of 25.6%.
展开▼
