Present Situation and Development of Gear Materials and Their Heat Treatment Technology for Rail Transport in China

Based on the technical development of rail transit gears, in order to further improve the performance of rail transit gear products, this paper reviewed the development of heat treatment technology of rail transit gear materials in China in the past 60 years, and analyzed the research status of the composition system, metallurgical quality, and heat treatment technology of gear steels. The results show that the development trend of the materials and heat treatment technology for rail transport gears should consider three combinations: the combination of material processing and product design, the combination of high reliability and low mass without redundancy, and the combination of small distortion and surface hardening technology. Therefore, the rail transit gear materials will be optimized in the direction of high purity, high uniformity and low cost, and the heat treatment will be improved in the direction of strengthening gear fatigue ability, reducing heat treatment distortion and applying heat treatment intelligent equipment technology.