Effect of elasto-plasticity on the creep force characteristics and the railway vehicle stability

Abstract

To determine the tangential forces at the wheel-rail contact level, the a linear coefficients of stiffness provided by Kalker's theory are used in a many dynamic codes for the different contact models simulated. These a creep coefficients are exposed in reality to many reducing parameters a like roughness, surface contamination and third body layer. They also a can't take into account the elasto-plastic behavior of the bodies in a contact. In this paper, a three dimensional finite element model is a developed to study the wheel-rail rolling contact. The elastic solution a was compared to Kalker's theories and the effect of elasto-plasticity on a the creep force characteristics was studied. It is found that the a elasto-plastic behavior reduces the creep coefficients in the a longitudinal and the lateral direction. The reduced coefficients of a stiffness are assessed from this model and their influence on railway a vehicle stability is checked. The stability analysis shows that the a non-application of a reducing factor to Kalker's coefficients a overestimates the critical speed.