The contact zone between two steel components can be identified by utilizing a pressure measurement film in the contact between them. To reduce the number of necessary experiments, it is possible to simulate the contact situation using ‘finite element analysis’. This analysis requires material models for the contact partners and for the pressure measurement films. It is known that the pressure measurement film deforms not only elastically but also plastically. Taking this plastic deformation into account requires an appropriate material model such as the Drucker-Prager model. Based on published data of experiments with pressure measurement films that had been inserted between smooth and rough Hertzian bodies, we developed material models for three pressure measurement films. The roughness of a Hertzian body was studied by determining multiple pressure-clearance curves for three different surface roughnesses and for three different pressure measurement films. These curves were developed with micro models, which represented a small section of the rough contact surface. An average curve for each material was then implemented in the macro model for each roughness representing the contact situation. Subsequently, the resulting contact areas were compared with the published experimental data. This comparison showed that the material model for the smooth contact was able to emulate the experimentally determined contact areas. Including the pressure-clearance curves in the material model allowed the simulation of the rough contact situation. However, the deviation between the simulated and the experimental data was slightly larger for the rough surface than for the smooth surface.

Determining the shape and size of a wheel-rail contact area is required to calculate fatigue and wear of wheel and rail. Fatigue and wear are influenced by high pressures of up to 1000 MPa that act on the small contact area of approximately 1 cm². One problem in identifying the contact patch is the inaccessibility of the contact point. Therefore, numerical and experimental methods have been applied to identify the shape and size of the contact area in the static wheel-rail contact. Here, we summarize and compare methods to identify the static wheel-rail contact area, in particular the Hertzian calculation, the use of carbon paper, the use of pressure measurement film, the finite element method, the use of ultrasonic testing, and a semi-Hertzian method called STRIPES. Our review revealed that several methods exist to determine the static wheel-rail contact, which were introduced as well as results of some research projects. However, the partly incomplete description of methods studied impeded a detailed assessment of the results. Furthermore, due to the non-comparable parameters applied in the different studies, it was impossible to contrast the results and methods presented in the different publications. Hence, it is recommended that future results in the field of static wheel-rail contact should be directly contrasted with a detailed finite element model. This proceeding will allow to directly compare different methods on the bases of finite element analysis and thus the identification of a method for each situation.