Abstract
The paper presents modern concepts of the contact fatigue crack occurrence in the railhead. Numerical simulation of the contact interaction between rails and rolling stock wheels by finite elements method are presented. During the simulation, the problem was solved in elastic and elastic-plastic formulations. We considered R65 rail profile and standard railway wheels. The conditions for the rail–wheel interaction corresponded to train movement on the straight section of the track without slipping. The modern life assessment methodology involves the calculation of the material damage increment at each point of the element as the load varies over time, and subsequent summation of this damage. Upon reaching the ultimate value of the total damage, the structural element is believed to lose its load-carrying capacity, i.e. a crack is formed in it. Despite the substantial simplification of the real problem, the computational costs for the implementation of such methods for predicting the durability will be unnecessarily high. In this regard, we propose the simplified method of the durability calculation.
Highlights
The current stage of development of railway transport is characterized by a tightening of operating parameters, which will inevitably lead to an increase in force and thermal effects on structural elements of the rolling stock and rail tracks
The combined criteria can be used [6], which have worked well in the assessment of durability of structural elements operating in contact
Assuming that the plastic strain increment is low, which is true for those areas of the railhead where internal cracks are nucleated, the block cyclic loading is later modelled only for the dangerous point, using the appropriate model of elastic-plastic deformation and the established law of changes in the components of the active strain tensor
Summary
The paper presents modern concepts of the contact fatigue crack occurrence in the railhead. Numerical simulation of the contact interaction between rails and rolling stock wheels by finite elements method are presented. The modern life assessment methodology involves the calculation of the material damage increment at each point of the element as the load varies over time, and subsequent summation of this damage. Despite the substantial simplification of the real problem, the computational costs for the implementation of such methods for predicting the durability will be unnecessarily high. In this regard, we propose the simplified method of the durability calculation
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