Nowadays, the railway is considered as a means of fast, aggregate and secure transportation. The issue of the rail and wheel contact is one of the most fundamental aspects in the railway system since inappropriate interactions create problems such as wear and a negative effect in the dynamic functioning of the train. In this research, we analyze one of the most important phenomenon in a railway system which is the contact of the rail and wheel. This review is done in the scope of the most fundamental deteriorating aspect of the rail and wheel system, the wear. The wear in the contact of objects along with its occurrence between the wheel and rail is also analyzed.

Accurate wear prediction on railway wheels and evolution of railway wheels profile can affect the maintenance planning. The objective of this paper is to provide a new applied method for measuring the railway wheel profile with photographing from the railway wheel to measure by image processing techniques. The aim of this new applied method is to measure the wheel profile using images taken from railway wheels and compare it with the original plan. For this purpose, images were taken by using a camera. In this study, all automatic correction options were turned off and brightness and contrast were in normal conditions. The pixel data is converted to double-type data and are placed in the range of zero and one. Then, the input image which is usually as a three-channel or RGB image is converted to a single channel or gray surface image. Images taken from wheel profiles are processed using image processing techniques. Then the lines, curves and shapes in the image are extracted as cross-sectional and continuous curves. The new applied method results by image processing method obtained show good agreement with those achieved in field measurements.

Variations in loadings of rolling contact components lead to a change in contact forces between surfaces. These forces are the main cause of rolling contact damages such as fatigue. Residual stresses are a major issue in railway wheel structures and it is appropriate to reduce such stresses.The aim of this paper is to estimate residual stresses in railway wheel due to hub to rim and axle to hub fitting process. a nonlinear three-dimensional model of stress is applied for analyzing stress field during press fitting process. An elastic-plastic finite element model is developed to model variable thermal loading in railway wheel. Finally, results of three dimensional finite element analysis showed a good agreement to field observations.