A numerical study on waves induced by wheel-rail contact
More Info
expand_more
Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.
Abstract
Recent finite element (FE) simulations have revealed the generation and propagation of waves in rail surfaces induced by wheel-rail frictional rolling. These waves have rarely been addressed in the literature. This paper presents an in-depth analysis of these waves, aiming to give new insights into the contact mechanics, a research area in which waves have generally been ignored. The study first categorises the simulated contact-induced waves according to their generation mechanisms as impact-induced, creepage-induced and perturbation-induced waves. The link between the generation of perturbation-induced waves and the stick-slip contact mechanism is then explored. Next, by examining the rail surface nodal motion that forms the wave, the creepage-induced wave is demonstrated to be a Rayleigh wave; this result also shows that the explicit FE method can effectively simulate physical contact-induced waves and provide reliable dynamic contact solutions. Finally, FE modelling is presented to investigate the effects of surface cracks on the waves, which may contribute to wave-based crack detection.