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                Improved Truck Castings
    

    
    
          **Opportunity/Problem:**

Repair welds in critical areas of side frames and bolsters must undergo full furnace re-heat treatment.  Welds in non-critical areas can form undesirable microstructures because of high cooling rates.

Truck castings can fail in a brittle manner at low temperatures.  Components which maintain ductility at low service temperatures could prevent such failures.

**Description:**

The Improved Truck Castings project focuses on improving the safety of train operations by reducing the number of in-service failures due to poor microstructure.

**Objective(s):**

Identify or develop steels that do not form undesirable microstructures after welding
	Identify or develop steels that retain adequate toughness to prevent brittle failure at
	low temperatures
	Candidate alloys will undergo testing in next phase of project**Rail Impact:**

Reduce failure rates of truck castings due to poor microstructure after repair welding
	Reduce failure rates of truck castings due to brittle failure in low temperature serviceImproved Truck Castings.
              
      
    
          Last updated: Tuesday, October 22, 2019 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

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