Abstract
Railway wheels fail owing to fatigue during long runs. During running frequent braking and jamming of brakes causes wheels to skid over rails and material to be removed from the tread. This frequent skidding that removes large amounts of metal from the surface is known as wheel–flat defect. In this paper the model of the wheel with 'flat' defect using FEA and a subsurface crack in the vicinity of the defect is studied. Owing to rolling contact fatigue the subsurface crack propagates and removes a large material from the tread. If flat defect is not detected early the subsurface crack can originate in the vicinity owing to the presence of a cavity or inclusion and may lead to fatal accidents. Stress intensity factor has been obtained for the crack propagation caused by the original subsurface crack. The wheel–rail is modelled as a mass–spring–damper system to simulate the basic wheel–rail dynamics.
Published Version
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call