There have been several attempts to solve Hertz equation for curved surface contact problem. One application of Hertzian contact problem is to determine the contact properties between wheel and rail. It is important to understand the contact between wheel and rail so that excessive wear can be avoided and train accidents can be minimized. In this work, an attempt has been made to solve Hertzian contact for small radius of curvature using a simple newly invented formula. A finite element modeling was also performed to observe the variations of maximum contact stress in rail with respect to the change rail radius of curvature. The invented formula was to modify the formula of Fischer et.al especially for the major and minor axis so that a more accurate result was obtained in determining the contact dimensions and maximum contact pressure.
An experimental model has been developed to characterize the effect of lateral radius of curvature to the wear rate of a disc. This is to simulate the wheel-rail contact wear phenomenon in railway transportation where excessive rail wear commonly occurs at the curve, and eventually this will cause accidents such as derailment, etc. The experiment was conducted using two stainless steel discs, ST37 (0.132% C) and ST60 (0.458% C), with different lateral radius of curvature. One disc has the radius of 13 mm while the other disc has several variations of the radius i.e. 16 mm, 18 mm, 20 mm, 22 mm, and 24 mm. The lowest wear rate was observed for the disc with 22 mm radius while the highest wear rate was observed for the disc with 16 mm radius.
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