Prediction of Rolling Contact Fatigue Behavior in Rails Using Crack Initiation and Growth Models along with Multibody Simulations

Abstract

Rolling contact fatigue (RCF) is a common cause of rail failure due to repeated stresses at the wheel-rail contact. This phenomenon is a real problem that greatly affects the safety of train operation. Preventive and corrective maintenance tasks have a big impact on the Life Cycle Cost (LCC) of railway assets, and therefore cutting-edge strategies based on predictive functionalities are needed to reduce it. A methodology based on physical models is proposed to predict the degradation of railway tracks due to RCF. This work merges a crack initiation and a crack growth model along with a fully nonlinear multibody model. From a multibody assessment of the vehicle-track interaction, an energy dissipation method is used to identify points where cracks are expected to appear. At these points, crack propagation is calculated considering the contact conditions as a function of crack depth. The proposed methodology has been validated with field measurements, conducted using Eddy Currents provided by the infrastructure manager Network Rail. Validation results show that RCF behavior can be predicted for track sections with different characteristics without the necessity of previous on-track measurements.

Two Contributions to Rolling Contact Fatigue Testing Considering Different Diameters of Rail and Wheel Discs

“…An example of incremental approach application can be found in [27], where the Jiang fatigue damage criterion [28] was utilized. Energy dissipation methods are also applied to predict crack initiation, benefiting from a fast calculation [29]. However, the disadvantage is that the analysis does not provide the characteristics of predicted cracks.…”

Using the Effect of Compression Stress in Fatigue Analysis of the Roller Bearing for Bimodal Stress Histories

“…An example of the problem in which a multiaxial stress state occurs is rolling contact fatigue. This phenomenon applies to crane wheels [ 15 ], railway wheels and rails [ 18 , 19 ], rolling bearings [ 20 ], gears [ 21 ], etc. With respect to the crane wheel example, it was shown that not all criteria are suitable for the analysis of elements working in rolling contact conditions [ 15 ].…”