A computational simulation study on the dynamic response of high-speed wheel–rail system in rolling contact

Xiaoqi Ma,Lin Jing,Liangliang Han

doi:10.1177/1687814018809215

Xiaoqi Ma, Lin Jing + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1177/1687814018809215

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Abstract

The dynamic wheel–rail responses during the rolling contact process for high-speed trains were investigated using the explicit finite element code LS-DYNA 971. The influence of train speed on the wheel–rail contact forces (including the vertical, longitudinal, and lateral forces), von Mises equivalent stress, equivalent plastic strain, vertical acceleration of the axle, and the lateral displacement of the initial contact point on the tread, were examined and discussed. Simulation results show that the lateral and longitudinal wheel–rail contact forces are very smaller than the corresponding vertical contact forces, and they seem to be insensitive to train speed. The peak value of dynamic vertical wheel–rail contact force is approximately 2.66 times larger than the average quasi-static value. The elliptical wheel–rail contact patches have multiple stress extreme points due to the plastic deformation of the wheel tread and top surface of the rail. The vertical acceleration value of the axle in the steady condition is around ±5 m/s2 for the perfected wheel–rail system with the running speed below 300 km/h.

Highlights

High-speed railways have been developed rapidly for the past two decades in many countries around the world
The wheel–rail interaction issues have been widely studied in the past decades, mainly using the multi-body dynamics (MBD) approach and newly developed finite element method (FEM).[2,5,9,12,13,14,15,16,17,18]
The proposed wheel–rail rolling contact FE model has been validated with the analytical results in our previous studies,[15,16] by introducing the wheel flat defect to this model

Summary

Introduction

High-speed railways have been developed rapidly for the past two decades in many countries around the world. The influence of train speed on the characteristics of the typical dynamic wheel–rail responses—the wheel–rail contact forces (including the vertical, longitudinal and lateral forces), the lateral displacement of the initial contact point on the tread, vertical acceleration of the axle, and related von Mises stress and equivalent plastic strain—was explored and discussed.

Results

Conclusion