Effect of water temperature on the adhesion between rail and wheel

Abstract

The effects of factors such as rolling speed, contact load, water temperature, and surface roughness on the adhesion coefficient between wheel and rail under wet conditions were investigated theoretically by adopting elasto-hydrodynamic lubrication theory and rough surfaces contact theory [1]. It was found that the water temperature and the surface roughness greatly affect the adhesion performance comparing the other factors. This paper describes an experimental investigation on the effect of water temperature on the adhesion coefficient to verify the significant effect of the water temperature on the adhesion coefficient. The experimental results indicated that a rise in water temperature causes an increase in the adhesion coefficient, which was qualitatively consistent to the numerically calculated results in the previous paper [1].