Mapping rail wear regimes and transitions

Abstract

This paper outlines work carried out to produce maps of rail material wear coefficients taken from laboratory tests run on twin disc and pin-on-disc machines as well as those derived from measurements taken in the field. Wear regimes and transitions are identified using the maps and defined in terms of slip and contact pressure. Wear regimes are related to expected wheel/rail contact conditions and contact points (rail head/wheel tread and rail gauge/wheel flange). Surface morphologies are discussed and comparisons are made between field and laboratory data.

Tribology of the wheel–rail contact – aspects of wear, particle emission and adhesion

“…This observation that the contact conditions in terms of contact pressure and sliding velocity are more important than the grade of steel (900A and 1100) has also been verified in two-roller tests [16]. However, when Lewis and Olofsson [7] compared rail steel wear coefficients taken from laboratory tests run on twin disc and pin-on-disc machines as well as those derived from measurements taken in the field, they found that the introduction of more modern rail materials had reduced wear rates by up to an order of magnitude in the last 20 years. (ii).…”

“…A good way of displaying wear data is a map, as first illustrated in Figure 7. The map below is for a wheel-rail contact (Lewis & Olofsson, [7]). The wear data was built up using a mixture of twin disc and pin-on-disc testing methods using R7 wheel material and UIC 60 900A rail material.…”

Application of a Computational Tool to Study the Influence of Worn Wheels on Railway Vehicle Dynamics

“…The contact model processes the dynamic analysis results to obtain the wheel-rail contact parameters [20][21][22][23][24]. The wear function uses these contact parameters as input to compute the quantity of worn wheel material [5][6][7]19]. The wear distribution removes the quantity of worn material from the wheel profiles.…”

“…In general, these wear laws use the normal and tangential forces and the relative slip velocities (creepages), as input to compute the wear. In the literature [5][6][7]19,[25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35] different methods for estimating wear of railway wheels can be found. These methods are based on real wear data acquired using different experimental techniques.…”

“…In the literature, several approaches to estimate wheel and rail wear using dynamic simulations are available [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. However, less emphasis has been placed on the consequences of that wear on the performance of the railway vehicles.…”