Effect of Specimen Geometry and Press-Fit on the Stress Intensity Factor Solution for Scaled Wheelset Axles under Bending

Abstract

One problem in wheelset axles are the failures due to the propagation of fatigue cracks. To avoid those failures with sometimes catastrophic consequences analytical crack propagation simulations are used. For these simulations the knowledge of the crack propagation path and the corresponding stress intensity factor (SIF) is required. To calculate the SIF a numerical simulation, such as finite element method (FEM), is generally needed. To this end numerical simulations for shouldered solid shafts with elliptical surface cracks are done. In this work different influencing factors of the stress intensity factor expressions have been identified. Therefore, two different specimen types with three different stress concentration factors each were designed. The results represent an overview for the interaction of stress concentration factor, crack depth, crack aspect ratio, bending and press-fit load in shouldered solid shafts. To represent the rotation, different characteristic angular positions for one selected characteristic crack geometry have been considered.