Prediction of wheel wear of different types of articulated monorail based on co-simulation of MATLAB and UM software

Abstract

Analysis of the Chongqing monorail shows that there is no relationship between wheel wear and radial force, which means the radial force cannot be used to evaluate the wheel wear of monorail. Due to the same physical significance of the Schallamach tire wear model for automobiles, the wear index of railway wheels, which represents the creep power of unit wheel–rail contact area, is proved to be effective in evaluating the wheel wear of railway vehicles, automobiles, and vehicles with both properties, namely, monorail. Parameters of Chongqing monorail, modified through genetic algorithm, are used to build the model of the articulated monorail. Through co-simulation of the MATLAB and UM software, the wheel wears of two types of articulated monorail are calculated. For both types of monorails, correlation analysis shows that the variation of driving wheel and guide wheel wear of the inner bogies with the track curvature radius are roughly the same. The variation of the wheel wears in the two end bogies is a little different from that of the inner bogies. Comparison indicates that the wheels of the bolster type monorail wear more than that of the non-bolster type. Regardless of the monorail type, the wheels in the inner bogies wear more.