Thermo-Mechanical Analysis of Railway Wheel – Rail Rolling/Sliding contact
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Date
2017-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Thermal damage caused by frictional heat of rolling-sliding contact is one of the most important
failure forms of wheel and rail. The coupled mechanical–thermal behavior of wheel and rail
materials under rolling contact is studied to determine the temperature rise due to the frictional
heat. The wheel–rail frictional rolling contact problem is solved using the both hertz three–
dimensional finite element (FE) method. The FE model considers the wheel tread–rail top contact
with partial-slip and converts the frictional energy into the heat as an attempt to estimate the
temperature rise. The assembly of wheel-rail geometry is created by CATIA V5R20 software.
The finite element program ANSYS workbench is used to model the couple of thermos-mechanical
rolling –sliding contact analysis and used to simulate the loading and boundary conditions of the
wheel-rail rolling/sliding contact. When the couple of mechanical – thermal (maximum pressure
and different heat flux) applied on the wheel – rail rolling/ sliding contact, it generates a maximum
amount of heat and stress between rail and wheel. This cause plastic strain development and
reduction of stress fatigue life for the increased value of loads that resulted from slippage as can
note from analysis and simulation results. Rolling contact stress states and material response of
wheel – rail under four traction coefficient and the same varying of sliding velocity were
investigated. 3D coupled thermomechanical FE model were developed to analyze the temperature
rise due to high applied load at contact and the thermal influence on residual stress-strain, wear
and rail life.
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Keywords
Railway Wheel – Rail, Thermo-Mechanical Analysis, Rolling/Sliding contact