Abstract
Well-designed wheel-rail profiles are not only helpful in achieving expected dynamic vehicle performance but also in extending the service lives of wheels and rails. In this paper, a method for designing wheel-rail profiles is presented based on the rolling radius difference. This method consists of three parts, i.e., the reverse designs of wheel profiles, symmetric rail profiles and non-symmetric rail profiles. A reverse design method for wheel-rail profiles that can obtain smooth profile formed by quadratic curves is established according to the mapping relation between the rolling radius difference and the wheel-rail profile gradient. This reverse design method is verified and an example for optimizing the design of wheel profiles is introduced. Results show that the design method is effective and efficient. The static/dynamic indexes of the optimized wheel profiles matched with CHN60 can be greatly improved. According to the comparative analysis of wheel-rail contact and dynamic performance, when the lateral displacement reaches 6 mm, the maximum contact stress will be distributed evenly and can be decreased by 184.4 MPa compared to that of existing profiles, while the critical speed can be increased by 10.8% and the running stability can be improved by around 7%. It can be seen that this method is useful for the design of new wheel-rail profiles and optimization of existing wheel-rail profiles.
Highlights
The entire mass of the railway vehicle running on the track is borne by the wheels in contact with the rail and the vehicle is driven and guided by the traction and braking force created by wheel-rail adhesion
The proper design of wheel-rail profiles is helpful in achieving ideal vehicle operation, including curve negotiation, prevention of derailment, running stability and safety [1,2,3,4]
The different design requirements such as the wear characteristics, high critical speed or good curve negotiation could be satisfied by adjusting the radii of the wheel profiles
Summary
The entire mass of the railway vehicle running on the track is borne by the wheels in contact with the rail and the vehicle is driven and guided by the traction and braking force created by wheel-rail adhesion. Persson and Iwnicki [9] and Novales et al [10] sought wheel profiles matching with the vehicle suspension parameters directly through dynamic simulation and the genetic algorithm and comprehensively analyzed the constraint conditions of different wheel-rail characteristics such as comfort, lateral track force, derailment coefficient, wear and contact stress. Dichotomy is used during the numerical calculation in order to improve the calculation efficiency
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
