An investigation into transient frictional rolling contact behaviour in a switch panel: validation and numerical simulation

Abstract

To improve the understanding of wheel/rail contact behaviour and damage mechanisms in turnouts, the 3D explicit finite element model of a wheelset rolling over a switch is introduced. This takes into account the arbitrary geometrical profile of the wheel-rail system, the relative motion between switch/stock rail, the nonlinear materials and actual moving postures of the wheelset. Precise frictional rolling contact solutions and dynamic response, including contact stress, surface shear stress, microslip, roll angle and lateral displacement, are all studied to obtain a better understanding of the wheel-rail frictional rolling contact behaviour in the switch panel. The simulated results are then verified through field tests on the Qingdao-Jinan line. The results indicate that the proposed explicit finite element method can be an efficient tool for solving the problems of frictional rolling contact behaviour and damage mechanism in switch panels.

KEYWORDS:

• Wheel-rail impacts
• contact mechanics
• high speed
• tribology
• rail-wheel interaction

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

The present work has been supported by the Scientific Research Plan of China Railway [grant number k2019G010], the National Key Research and Development Program of China [grant number 2016YFB1102600], the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant numbers 51608459, 51778542, 51978586 and U1734207], Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [grant number 2682018CX01] and Key Research and Development Projects of Science and Technology Program for Sichuan Province [grant number 2019YFG0283], the Open fund of key laboratory of heavy haul railway engineering structure of Ministry of Education [grant number 2018JZZ02] and the Cultivation Program for Excellent Doctoral Dissertations at Southwest Jiaotong University.