ASTIMP: Axle Surface Treatment to Improve Mechanical Properties

A number of new surface treatment processes for axles are available or are currently being developed by various manufacturers and research centres. The aim of such solutions is mainly to achieve greater hardness on the axle surface and higher compressive residual stresses to get lower sensitivity to mechanical impacts (e.g. from ballast) and corrosion, higher fatigue margins and good behaviour in respect of crack initialization and propagation issues. The ASTIMP project focused on processes applied on the surface of railway axles and this report is limited to these components.