Numerical Prediction of Wheel Wear Development of Heavy-haul Freight Car Under Complex Operation Conditions

Abstract:

A numerical prediction model was established for wheel wear development of heavy-haul vehicle under complex operating conditions, and the corresponding calculating program was written. According to Archard’s material wear theory, the wear distributions were calculated based on the vehicle-track dynamics simulation and wheelrail rolling contact analysis. Simulations were made respectively for every possible case and weight factors were introduced, in order to model the complex operating conditions. An adaptive step algorithm was adopted to update the wheel profile, which could improve the stability and reliability of numerical model. The wheel wear developing processes of heavy haul vehicle of Da-Qin railway under actual operating conditions were predicted based on the established model. The results show that the wear grows continuously with running distance increasing for every wheel, but the wear development shows a slowdown trend. The wear is mainly distributed in the contact area near nominal rolling circle, and the distribution range is wider for guiding wheel. The wear develops faster near the flange, which is more obvious for guiding wheel. The calculated results verified the rationality of the established model.