Abstract
Rolling contact loading causes a remarkable plastic flow at the contact surface of rail
and wheel or the surface of a pair of disks rotating under normal force. It is supposed
that significant residual stress, work hardening and preferred orientation will be
introduced as well as the plastic flow, and the combination of all of those factors may
cause the fatigue damage to the specimen. In the present study, the mode of plastic
flow and the preferred orientation with respect to the tangential force, or slip at the
contact region were measured. The experimental results were nearly the same for
both laboratory tested disk specimen and a used rail. The distribution of degree of
plastic flow showed good agreement with the work hardening of the flowed region,
besides the mode of plastic flow is nearly the same as the calculated result. The
major texture component at the flowed region was near (111) [