Sliding Wear Examination of New Protecting Coatings on Railway Buffer Heads

Abstract

Abstract The paper presents the results of tests of sliding wear of bronze coatings made on the surface of specimen made of S355J2 steel by laser cladding method. On the basis of the conducted tests it was found that the wear of the specimens with CuAl9Fe3 bronze coating is characterized by average values which are close to lubricated specimens. In addition, the registration of friction coefficients of particular couples showed very similar characteristics of these two friction couples and friction coefficient values at a very similar level. This allows to assume that the currently used method of protecting railway buffer heads, consisting of periodically covering their surface with lubricant, can be replaced with another, more durable, based on bronze protection coatings.