Numerical investigation on effect of the relative motion of stock/switch rails on the load transfer distribution along the switch panel in high-speed railway turnout

ABSTRACT

In railway turnout, the stock rail and switch rail are separated to enable the vehicle changing among the tracks, and they are provided with different rail resilience level on the baseplate. Therefore, there will be vertical relative motion between stock/switch rails under the wheel loads, and the relative motion will affect consequentially the wheel–rail contact conditions. A method is developed to investigate the effect of the relative motion of stock/switch rails on the load transfer distribution along the switch panel in high-speed railway turnout. First, the rigid wheel–rail contact points of stock/switch rails are calculated based on the trace line method, and then the contact status is determined by the presented equations, finally, the distribution of wheel–rail contact forces of stock/switch rails is obtained based on the continuity of interface displacements and forces which using an approximate surface deformation method. Some parametric studies have been performed, such as the lateral displacement of wheel set, the vertical contact forces, the wheel profiles and the vertical stiffness of rail pad. The results of the parametric study are presented and discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Relative motion
• railway turnout
• switch panel
• wheel/rail contact
• load transfer distribution

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Xiaochuan Ma http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4033-3489

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the [National Natural Science Foundation of China] under grant [number 51425804], [number 51378439], [number 51608459], [number U1234201], [number U1734207]; [Key Project of the China’s High-Speed Railway United Fund] under grant [number U1234201].