Investigation of transient wheel-rail interaction and interface contact behaviour in movable-point crossing panel

Abstract

The high-speed turnout is a key part of railway track infrastructure. A process of wheel-load transition and single-wheel/multi-track contact take place in the turnout area, causing significant wheel-rail interaction. Most high-speed turnouts include movable-point crossings. To investigate the wheel-rail transient rolling contact behaviour in movable-point crossings, a 3D finite element (FE) model of a wheelset rolling over a crossing was introduced. The actual geometrical profile of the wheel and the rails in turnouts, the nonlinear materials, the actual relative motion between the point/wing rail, and the moving postures of the wheelset were considered. The simulated mode shape was compared with the experimental mode shape to verify the wheel-rail coupling model. Precise frictional rolling contact solutions and dynamic response, including wheel-rail force, contact stress, equivalent stress, equivalent plastic strain, and stick-slip distribution of the contact patches, were all studied. After this, the parametric analysis of dynamic wheel-rail contact behaviour was carried out. The simulated results indicate that the proposed explicit finite element method can characterise wheel-rail coupled dynamic interaction and mesoscopic rolling contact behaviour well, and improve the understanding of wheel-rail contact behaviour in the movable-point crossing panel of the high-speed turnouts.

KEYWORDS:

• Wheel-rail interaction
• rolling contact behaviour
• high speed
• modal analysis
• turnouts

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China: [grant no 52122810; 51978586; 52108418]; Basic Laboratory Research Project of China Railway Group Co. Ltd.: [grant no L2021G001]; Technology Research and Development Program of China National Railway Group Co., Ltd.: [grant no J2021G013, P2021T013]; Technology Research and Development Program of the China Academy of Railway Sciences: [grant no 2021YJ022]; Fundamental Research Funds for Central Universities: [grant no 2682022ZTPY067].