Development of a New Downscale Setup for Wheel-Rail Contact Experiments under Impact Loading Conditions

Abstract

A new downscale test rig is developed for investigating the contact between the wheel and rail under impact-like loading conditions. This paper presents the development process of the setup, including review and synthesis of the potential experimental techniques, followed by scalability, mechanical and operational analysis of the new setup. The new test rig intends to remedy the lack of dynamic similarity between the actual railway and the existing laboratory testing capability, by taking into account the factors that contribute to high-frequency dynamics of the wheel-track system. The paper first reviews the functionalities of the existing test techniques in the literature. Based on this survey, the category of the scaled wheel on the rail track ring is chosen. Afterwards, three potential alternatives are identified under the chosen category and the optimum mechanism is achieved through finite element modelling and analysis of the structures. A downscale test rig, consisting of multiple wheel components running over a horizontal rail track ring, effectively fulfilled the requirements needed for analogical testing of the wheel-rail contact behaviour. The new test rig is a unique experimental setup due to the involvement of high-frequency dynamic vibrations in the wheel-track system and analogy of the incorporated elements and loading to those of the real-life system. This paper further presents the results of some real experiments carried out using the newly-built setup to support substantial ideas behind its development.

Design and validation of a wheel-rail adhesion simulator in PLS-Circulator

“…The wheel-rail contact simulation test rig is utilized to simulate the geometric relationship and mechanical behaviour of wheel-rail contact, which can be classified as wheel-rail [8], wheel-wheel [9][10][11], and wheel-ring [12,13]…”

An experimental study on the effects of friction modifiers on wheel–rail dynamic interactions with various angles of attack

“…The sampling frequency of the ABA measurement is 100 kHz. A more detailed description of the V-Track structure and components can be found in [17,20].…”

“…That is probably because in field tests, noise can be more handily measured, e.g. no need to access the track, than the wheel/rail structural vibration; and in the laboratory, most of the broadly used test rigs such as the twin-disc roller rig fail to simulate realistic wheel-rail dynamic interactions because of the absence of key track/train components [17,18]. Further exploration into the effect of FM on the friction-induced vibration is thus desirable for the mitigation of squeal, corrugation and wheel polygonisation [19].…”

“…Both of them are on-board FMs that can be sprayed by the in-service trains. The tests were conducted in V-Track [17], an innovative test rig that can simulate realistic wheel-rail dynamic interactions and accurately control and measure wheel-rail normal load, friction force and creepage in the longitudinal and lateral directions [20]. Different dosages of the FMs were applied along the ring rail of V-Track.…”

Design and manufacture of a scaled railway track with mechanically variable geometry

“…In 26 , a 1/5 scaled wheel-rail test rig is used. It is a beam mounted on a central pivot with a single wheel at one end of the beam, and a circular track with a diameter of 2.5 m. In 27 – 29 , a rail track assembly is described. It includes different subassemblies as the components of a railway track structure, which is bended around a central pivot to provide a circular rail ring with a diameter of 4 m. Another example of a scaled track is that of Stapleford in Leicestershire (UK), which is used for training purposes by the railway division of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers through the Railway Challenge Competition .…”