Effects of wheelset flexibility on locomotive–track interaction due to rail weld irregularities

Abstract

Irregularities of rail joints ordinarily induce high-frequency impacts on wheel–rail contact systems, which may further influence vehicle–track interaction. In this study, a three-dimensional locomotive-track coupled dynamics model that uses the wheelset flexibility was developed. The wheelset rigid motion and elastic deformation are calculated based on the multi-body dynamics theory and finite element method, respectively. The effectiveness of this model was validated. The effect of wheelset flexibility on locomotive–track interaction due to rail weld irregularities is analysed by comparing the dynamic responses obtained using the rigid model and the proposed rigid–flexible coupled model. The proposed model is applied to the sensitivity analysis of the wheelset response to the rail weld geometry irregularity. The results show that the dominant frequency of the wheel–rail force or axle–box acceleration is 81 Hz, which is the 1st bending modal frequency of the wheelset. The P2 resonance frequency is easily excited owing to impacts of rail weld irregularities, which may induce the formation of locomotive wheel polygonization. The wheelset acceleration was more sensitive to the wavelength than the depth of the rail weld irregularities. The wavelength characteristics can be significant in vehicle vibration-based condition monitoring of rail weld irregularities.

KEYWORDS:

• Locomotive
• wheelset flexibility
• rail weld irregularity
• wheel–rail dynamic interaction
• condition monitoring

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank all the engineers involving in the on-track test from CRRC DATONG Co., Ltd and Southwest Jiaotong University, China. We would also like to acknowledge the Xplorer Prize for sponsoring the project. 

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China [grant number 2020YFA0710902], the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 51825504, U19A20110, 52072317], the State Key Laboratory of Traction Power [grant number 2021TPL-T08].