Wheel-Rail Interaction: Enhanced explicit finite element modelling, verification and validation

Nowadays, wheel-rail (W/R) interfaces are suffering from the practical problems (e.g. wear, rolling contact defects) with the increase of train speed and traffic density. For accurate prediction of wear and/or growth of rolling contact defects, rapid determination of detailed contact responses (i.e. contact stresses & strains) using...

Modelling verification and influence of operational patterns on tribological behaviour of wheel-rail interaction

Verification of the explicit finite element (FE) model with realistic wheel-rail profiles against the CONTACT model, which has not been sufficiently discussed, is performed by comparing the resulting shear stress, slip-adhesion area, etc., obtained from the two models. The follow-up studies using the verified FE model on the influence of the...

An approach to determine a critical size for rolling contact fatigue initiating from rail surface defects

A methodology for the determination of a critical size of surface defects, above which RCF can initiate, has been developed and demonstrated with its application to the passive type of squats under typical Dutch railway loading conditions. Such a methodology is based on stress evaluation of transient rolling contact at the defects, for which...

Influences of characteristic size of contact bodies on rolling contact

The rolling contact of elastic bodies (upper body and lower body) can be analyzed with the Hertz theory and the Kalker’s model. It is generally believed that the width of the contact area should be much smaller than the characteristic size of each elastic body, to ensure that the half-space assumption is valid. However the definition of “much...