Influence of railway-track grinding on the track material condition and tribological behaviour

As societies have a rising demand regarding mobility as well as an increasing ecological awareness, the energy efficiency, noise emissions and availability of transportation in urban environments become essential for growing cities. In this context, the role of rail-bound traffic in urban environments as well as in intercity-connections is of rising importance. To guarantee travelling comfort and safety, shorter downtimes as well as power efficiency, the condition of the railway network is subject to rising quality requirements. Therefore, the maintenance, repair and overhaul as well as the material quality of railway-tracks is faced with new challenges. An important part of track maintenance is track grinding. To ensure an economically reasonable track life cycle and to prolong the time period between repair tasks, grinding processes should not induce damage such as cracks and hardening. On the other side, high productivity of track grinding, which tends to induce damage, is crucial t