The purpose of this work is to gain a better understanding of the complex damage phenomena taking place at the railway wheel/brake block interface due to thermo-mechanical loading. Initially, ...full-stop braking was studied using Finite Element (FE) simulations to estimate the temperature reached in the wheel rim. Experiments to reproduce wheel damage were conducted with a two-disc machine using test conditions that were based on the results of the FE simulations. Three different wheel steels were tested against the same cast iron shoe material. The evolution of the wheel disc damage was studied at various numbers of cycles under fixed contact pressure and sliding speed. The friction coefficient and the temperature on the wheel disc surface were measured during the tests. At the end of the experiments, the wheel disc was examined and characterized. Cross-sections were observed with an optical microscope and the hardness was measured as a function of the depth to investigate the damage mechanisms that occurred at surface and subsurface. Material transfer from the shoe specimen to the wheel specimen results in the formation of a discontinuous “third body” layer, and that layer plays a key role in the evolution of the wheel disc damage. When the transferred layer of brake material is worn away, detachment of steel from the wheel disc surface occurs, probably promoting the crack nucleation. In addition, wear debris from both disc materials promotes three-body abrasive wear of the wheel disc surface.
•The damage phenomena taking place at the wheel/brake block interface were investigated.•The temperature map in the wheel rim was estimated by thermal FE simulations.•Experimental tests were performed with a two-disc machine to reproduce the wheel damage.•The brake material transfer plays a key role in the wheel disc damage evolution.
Redundant braking system (RBS) is an important part of intelligent vehicle safety. Accurate and stable steering wheel angle is the key signal to realize vehicle stability control. Hence, in order to ...improve the reliability of the angle signal in the redundant braking system, a redundant steering wheel angle sensor (RSAS) is developed and designed, and a fault diagnosis and fault tolerance degradation control (FDFTDC) strategy based on fuzzy decision is proposed in combination with the steering system. The RSAS consists of a main gear connected to the steering wheel column, and the two pinion pairs are redundant to each other. Based on RSAS, a steering wheel observer is introduced to establish steering wheel Angle fault diagnosis and fault-tolerant control strategy. Finally, it is applied to the stability of the braking system. The results show that FDFDTC can effectively diagnose and control the steering wheel Angle signal, improve the safety redundancy of the system, and effectively improve the robustness of the RBS in the vehicle stability. When one of the RSAS fails, the MSE is 0.0616, with the same deviation as normal. In the RBS system, when all RSAS fail, the MSE is 0.0867, which can still guarantee the function of the system.
Dynamic wheel–rail contact forces induced by a severe form of wheel tread damage have been measured by a wheel impact load detector during full-scale field tests at different vehicle speeds. Based on ...laser scanning, the measured three-dimensional damage geometry is employed in simulations of dynamic vehicle–track interaction to calibrate and verify a simulation model. The relation between the magnitude of the impact load and various operational parameters, such as vehicle speed, lateral position of wheel–rail contact, track stiffness and position of impact within a sleeper bay, is investigated. The calibrated model is later employed in simulations featuring other forms of tread damage; their effects on impact load and subsequent fatigue impact on bearings, wheel webs and subsurface initiated rolling contact fatigue of the wheel tread are assessed. The results quantify the effects of wheel tread defects and are valuable in a shift towards condition-based maintenance of running gear, and for general assessment of the severity of different types of railway wheel tread damage.
The surface topography of ceramic grinding wheels used in creep feed grinding is examined in this study. Creep feed grinding experiments are performed using seeded gel (SG) grinding wheels. The ...three-dimensional surface of the grinding wheel is observed using a two-dimensional high-definition laser displacement sensor, and the effective cutting-edge number is calculated based on three-dimensional surface observations. Microscopic wear behaviors of grain cutting edges are examined based on scanning electron microscope (SEM) images. The cutting-edge area percentage is calculated based on SEM images via the discriminant analysis method. Results show that the micro self-sharpening phenomenon can be evaluated quantitatively. Micro sharp cutting edges on grains and normal grinding forces are suppressed. Subsequently, the relationship between the grinding characteristics and behaviors of the SG wheel working surface is investigated.
Ring dampers have been widely applied to control vibration of, and noise from, train wheels due to the simple structure, negligible impact on operational safety and potential in vibration and noise ...reduction. Yet, parameters affecting the vibro-acoustic performance of a ring-damped wheel are not adequately studied. In this paper, the apparent modal damping ratios of a ring-damped wheel are studied numerically using a finite element model allowing for frictional nonlinearity. Studied parameters include the impact force used to excite the wheel, the preload in the ring, the friction coefficient of the interface between the ring and the wheel, and the number of rings installed. Several findings can be drawn from the study. Installation of one or two rings to the wheel does not change the resonance frequencies (they are also termed the modal frequencies of the ring-damped wheel) but reduces the resonance responses by generating extra damping to the modes. The ring is more effective for radial excitation than for axial excitation. At most modal frequencies, damping with double rings is higher than with a single ring. Although there are few modal frequencies at which the modal damping ratios are reduced by installing the second ring, the average damping ratio with two rings is much higher, by a factor of 2.37 for axial excitation and 1.73 for radial excitation, than that with a single ring. The apparent damping of the ring-damped wheel increases with the level of the impact force, especially for radial excitation. There is an optimal combination of the preload in the ring and the frictional coefficient with which damping induced by the ring is the highest. Besides, the average damping ratios of the modes above 2000 Hz are proposed to be an indicator of the effectiveness of the performance of a ring-damped wheel in noise reduction.
► Wheel wear evolution is a very important issue for railway industry. ► A computational tool that predicts the evolution of the wheel profiles is presented. ► Three alternative wear functions are ...implemented and compared. ► A good conformity between results obtained with a global and a local wheel-rail contact model is obtained. ► The local approach requires about twice the CPU time needed by the global method.
When compared with road traffic, railway transportation is safer, more comfortable, less polluting and presents less energy consumption per passenger/km. When compared with the airplane, high speed trains are able to compete for short and medium distances, with the advantage of having better energy efficiency and causing less pollution. However, to maintain the operational performance of railway vehicles, it is necessary that the quality of the wheel–rail contact is controlled, which requires, among others, a good understanding of the wear mechanisms of the wheels and the consequences of their changing profile on vehicle dynamics. In this work, a computational tool that is able to predict the evolution of the wheel profiles for a given railway system, as a function of the distance run, is presented. The strategy adopted consists of a commercial multibody software to study the railway dynamic problem and a purpose-built code for managing its pre and post-processing data in order to compute the wear. Three alternative wear functions are implemented to compute the amount of worn material on the railway wheels. The computational tool is applied here to a realistic operational scenario in order to demonstrate its capabilities on wear prediction. Special attention is given to the comparison of the results obtained with the different wear functions implemented in this work and to the global and local contact models used in such formulations.
This paper evaluates the performance of creep feed grinding γ-TiAl intermetallic (Ti-45Al-2Mn-2Nb) using electroplated diamond wheels. Firstly, a comparative analysis with the grinding results by ...using electroplated CBN wheels was conducted, mainly involving abrasive wheel wear behavior and maximum material removal rate below surface burn limit. It was found that the diamond wheel would produce much better grinding results including lower wheel wear rate and higher maximum material removal rate. Then the surface integrity obtained at different level of material removal rate was characterized with the utilization of the diamond wheel. The poor ductility of this γ-TiAl intermetallic material was found to have a marginal effect on the surface integrity, as no severe surface defects such as material pullout were generated during the stable wheel wear stage. For the involved operating parameters, a deformation layer was produced with ∼10 μm or more in thickness depending on the material removal rate used. Meanwhile, a work-hardened layer extending to more than 100 μm was produced with a maximum microhardness of above 520 HV0.05 (bulk value 360 HV0.05). The residual stress remained compressive, with a value of above −100 MPa and even up to −500 MPa for an elevated material removal rate. Shearing chip was the main chip type, indicating good wheel sharpness in the grinding process.
•Wheel-rail creepage-adhesion curves at high speed were obtained.•A simplified method was proposed to extract parameters to modify FASTSIM.•Dynamic wheel-rail interactions were obtained by numerical ...methodology under low adhesion.•Wheel-rail wear performances were primarily investigated under wet condition.
The evolution of wheel-rail dynamic interaction of a high-speed railway vehicle is essential for the simulation of wheel-rail rolling contact damage under low adhesion conditions. The main objective of this study is to reproduce the dynamic wheel-rail interaction behaviour under various interfacial contaminations by experimental and numerical modelling methodology. Firstly, the wheel-rail adhesion characteristics under different interfacial contaminations were obtained. Subsequently, a simplified numerical methodology was proposed to extract the parameters from the high-speed adhesion tests to modify the simplified theory of Kalker (FASTSIM). The initial slop reduction factor and the slip-velocity-dependent coefficient of friction (COF) were introduced based on the high-speed experimental curves. Furthermore, the modified wheel-rail rolling contact model was incorporated into a longitudinal vehicle-track coupled dynamic model. The wheel-rail dynamic interaction behaviours under different operational conditions were attained. Finally, the wheel-rail wear performances were primarily investigated for typical traction coefficients under wet conditions. Results show that the wheel-rail creep force drops dramatically when the wheel enters the low adhesion zone (LAZ). There is a sudden increase in the creep force when the adhesion recovers. In addition, the wheelsets begin to slide and have severe wear at LAZ when the traction coefficient is larger than 0.1 at high speed.
Timely monitoring of wheel polygon is of great importance for the formulation of railway wheel maintenance strategies. In this study, a novel data-driven method for onboard and quantitative detection ...of wheel polygon is presented. First, the axle box acceleration (ABA) signal preprocessing method and stationarity test are introduced to select the relatively stationary signal from the measured data of ABA. Next, an iterative algorithm is developed to accurately extract the quasi-stationary ABA signals, representing each wheel rotation period. Then, an improved frequency domain integration method is developed to quantitatively capture the orders and roughness levels of the wheel polygon. Finally, the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method is verified using the field-measured data of ABA and the wheel polygon in one cycle of wheel re-profiling. The results show that the proposed method can quantitatively capture the dominant characteristics of single- and multi-orders wheel polygons at different operating mileages with minimum and maximum absolute errors of 0.04 dB re 1 µm and −2.33 dB re 1 µm, respectively. The comparative analysis demonstrates that the proposed method outperforms the traditional time and frequency domain integration algorithms in the detailed characterisation of wheel polygon roughness levels.
Wheel–rail impact loads generated by discrete wheel tread irregularities may result in high dynamic bending stresses in the wheelset axle, leading to a decrease in component life and an elevated risk ...for fatigue failure. In this paper, a versatile and cost-efficient method to simulate the vertical dynamic interaction between a wheelset and railway track, accounting for generic distributions and shapes of wheel tread damage, is presented. The wheelset (comprising two wheels, axle and any attached equipment for braking and power transmission) and track with two discretely supported rails are described by three-dimensional finite element (FE) models. The coupling between the two wheel‒rail contacts (one on each wheel) via the wheelset axle and via the sleepers is considered. The simulation of dynamic vehicle–track interaction is carried out in the time domain using a convolution integral approach, while the non-linear wheel–rail normal contact is solved using Kalker's variational method. Wheelset designs that are non-symmetric with respect to the centre of the axle, track support conditions that are non-symmetric with respect to the centre of the track, as well as non-symmetric distributions of tread damage on the two wheels (or irregularities on the two rails) can be studied. Time-variant stresses are computed for the locations in the wheelset axle which are prone to fatigue. Based on Green's functions for stress established using the wheelset FE model, this is achieved in a post-processing step. An extensive parametric study has been performed where wheel–rail impact loads and axle stresses have been computed for different distributions and sizes of tread damage as well as for different train speeds.
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