Mapping rail wear regimes and transitions

This paper outlines work carried out to produce maps of rail material wear coefficients taken from laboratory tests run on twin disc and pin-on-disc machines as well as those derived from measurements taken in the field. Wear regimes and transitions are identified using the maps and defined in terms of slip and contact pressure. Wear regimes are related to expected wheel/rail contact conditions and contact points (rail head/wheel tread and rail gauge/wheel flange). Surface morphologies are discussed and comparisons are made between field and laboratory data

Experimental and numerical modelling of wheel rail contact and wear

In the field of simulation of railroad vehicles, there are many numerical models to estimate the interaction forces between the wheel and rail. The main advantage of these models is that they can be used together with multi-body dynamics software to calculate the motion of a vehicle in real time. However, the result of these contact models is usually post-processed to estimate wear on the profiles and some hypotheses assumed by the contact models may be inadequate for wear analysis. This is the case when considering surface roughness, which is not introduced in the numerical models and makes wear prediction imprecise. In this work an experimental method based on the measurement of ultrasonic reflection is used to solve the contact problem, together with a FASTSIM (simplified theory of rolling contact) algorithm. This technique is suitable to deal with rough surfaces and gives a better approximation of the material behaviour. Wear is estimated by means of the energy dissipation approach (T·gamma). Two different contacts are investigated, using wheel and rail profiles coming from unused and worn specimens. In order to obtain realistic results, special care is taken when locating the specimens to reproduce the same contact that appears between the wheel and the rail in the track.The corresponding author gratefully acknowledges the cooperation of C. Hardwick and Portec Rail Inc. for supplying the Miniprof device. This research was supported by Universitat Politecnica de Valencia (Spain).Rovira Cardete, A.; Roda Buch, A.; Marshall, M.; Brunskill, H.; Lewis, R. (2011). Experimental and numerical modelling of wheel rail contact and wear. Wear. 271(5-6):911-924. doi:10.1016/j.wear.2011.03.024S9119242715-

Constant

Purpose of my work is to understand a shape that I discovered in my working process: why do I find it so attractive and how far can I go with it. I researched the form in size, complexity, repetition, movement and aesthetics while documenting it by taking pictures and video. In the research process I came a lot closer to understanding the shape and what am I currently capable of achieving with it, yet there is vast amounts of work to do. I have found a shape with almost unlimited possibilities that keeps my mind constantly occupied. I see it as a ground study for the future from which I can draw inspiration for all – from simple usable design to large scale artistic works

Wheel-rail Interaction Analysis

A general approach to numerically simulating wear in rollingand sliding contacts is presented in this thesis. A simulationscheme is developed that calculates the wear at a detailedlevel. The removal of material follows Archard\u92s wear law,which states that the reduction of volume is linearlyproportional to the sliding distance, the normal load and thewear coefficient. The target application is the wheel-railcontact. Careful attention is paid to stress properties in the normaldirection of the contact. A Winkler method is used to calculatethe normal pressure. The model is calibrated either withresults from Finite Element simulations (which can include aplastic material model) or a linear-elastic contact model. Thetangential tractions and the sliding distances are calculatedusing a method that incorporates the effect of rigid bodymotion and tangential deformations in the contact zone.Kalker\u92s Fastsim code is used to validate the tangentialcalculation method. Results of three different sorts ofexperiments (full-scale, pin-on-disc and disc-on-disc) wereused to establish the wear and friction coefficients underdifferent operating conditions. The experimental results show that the sliding velocity andcontact pressure in the contact situation strongly influencethe wear coefficient. For the disc-on-disc simulation, therewas good agreement between experimental results and thesimulation in terms of wear and rolling friction underdifferent operating conditions. Good agreement was alsoobtained in regard to form change of the rollers. In thefull-scale simulations, a two-point contact was analysed wherethe differences between the contacts on rail-head to wheeltread and rail edge to wheel flange can be attributed primarilyto the relative velocity differences in regard to bothmagnitude and direction. Good qualitative agreement was foundbetween the simulated wear rate and the full-scale test resultsat different contact conditions. Keywords:railway rail, disc-on-disc, pin-on-disc,Archard, wear simulation, Winkler, rolling, slidingNR 2014080

Comparison of non-elliptic contact models: Towards fast and accurate modelling of wheel-rail contact

The demand to investigate and predict the surface deterioration phenomena in the wheel–rail interface necessitates fast and accurate contact modelling. During the past 20 years, there have been attempts to determine more realistic contact patch and stress distributions using fast simplified methods. The main aim of the present work is to compare some of these state-of-the-art, non-elliptic contact models available in the literature. This is considered as the first step to develop a fast and accurate non-elliptic contact model that can be used on-line with vehicle dynamics analysis. Three contact models, namely STRIPES, Kik-Piotrowski and Linder are implemented and compared in terms of contact patch prediction, as well as contact pressure and traction distributions. The evaluation of these models using CONTACT software indicate the need for improvement of contact patch and pressure estimation in certain contact cases