Measuring Rail/Wheel Contact Points of Running Railway Vehicles.

Abstract

In this paper, a method of measuring contact points of running railway vehicles is proposed and evaluated. The new method is developed by improving conventional method of measuring wheel load and lateral force. Firstly, surface strain on disk type wheel is analyzed by FEM under the conditions that vertical, lateral and longitudinal force acts separately on various points along the wheel profile. The calculated result shows possibility of detecting rail/wheel contact point by means of measuring lateral distribution of compress strain which changes according to the load position i.e. rail/wheel contact point. Secondly, this idea is verified by static load experiments using an actual disk type wheelset. The location of an area where lateral force affects little on surface strain is investigated, since the lateral distribution of strain should be measured in such an area to avoid the interference of disk bend by lateral force. Finally, the theory for the measurement is modified for on-track testing.