WHEEL & AXLE PLANT

    

Wheel and axle plant is a special feature of Durgapur steel plant. Till recently it was the only plant in the public sector, which produced  the wheel sets. The main customers of the wheel sets are the Indian railways, although the wheel sets are exported to various countries

     Wheel and axle plant was commissioned in 1962 with a capacity to produced 46,000 sets/yr. subsequently its capacity was raised further to 76000 sets/yr. The wheel and the axle plant has undergone modernization recently.

     In wheel and plant of DSP, wheels are produced by pressing and rolling while axle are produced by forging, subsequently both are heat treated and machined. For the case of production, wheel manufacturing section and axle manufacturing are located in two different bays. Tested wheels & axles finally meet only in assembly.

WHEEL PLANT:

    

The raw material for wheel is 12 side fluted bottom poured steel ingots of diameter 16”,14”. The chemical composition of wheel ingots is:-

·                  C=0.62 to 0.68%

·                  Si=0.24 to 0.28%

·                  S=0.04 to % [max]

·                  P=0.045% [max]

·                  Mn=0.70 to 0.85%

AXLE PLANT:

     The raw material is square bloom rolled in the blooming mill. Typical composition of axles steel [killed steel] :

·                  C=0.33 to 0.37%

·                  S=0.04%

·                  P=0.04%

·                  Mn=0.65 to 0.80%

·                  Si=0.12 to 0.17%

·                  Al=0.01 to 0.025%

The fluted ingots are sliced into 4-ingot block of which  three blocks are usually  used for wheel making. They are then subjected to heating, descaling, forging to get the rough shape of a wheel. Ultrasonic testing is done on a randomly selected wheel of a batch after it has undergone

normalizing in presence of  (C + Mn) as per Railways norms. Similarly axles are manufactured by rough  shaping of blooms, heats treatment, Ultrasonic testing and machining (that includes removing dust and scales drilling holes). Assembly of wheel and axle  is done  so as to obtain interference between the wheel seats and the bore  of  the wheel to obtain mounting  pressure build up to 400-500 kg/mm of wheel seat diameter.