An engineering model for prediction of rolling contact fatigue of railway wheels

Abstract

An engineering model for rolling contact fatigue (RCF) of railway wheels is developed. Three well‐known types of fatigue in wheels – surface‐initiated fatigue, subsurface‐initiated fatigue and fatigue initiated at deep material defects – are accounted for. Fatigue impact is quantified by three fatigue indices expressed in analytical form. The model can easily be integrated in a multibody dynamics code without significantly increasing computational demands. A powerful tool for optimizing train–track configurations with respect to fatigue performance should result. In this paper, theoretical foundations, benefits and limitations of the model are presented. An example of a postprocessing analysis of data from a dynamic simulation of train–track interaction is given.

Design of an optimised wheel profile for rail vehicles operating on two-track gauges

“…To predict the existence of RCF, Ekberg [27] proposes a surface fatigue index FI surf according to Equation (7):…”

Case study of multiaxial criteria for rolling contact fatigue of bearing steels

“…max ( )is the instantaneous maximal shear stress, ℎ ( ) is the instantaneous hydrostatic stress, is the fatigue limit in reversal torque and is the fatigue limit of fully reversed tension-compression or bending of rotation. Even though this criterion is used very often, it is inappropriate (too benevolent) [14,17,18], because it does not consider the significant influence of negative hydrostatic stress.…”

Parameters Studies on Surface Initiated Rolling Contact Fatigue of Turnout Rails by Three-Level Unreplicated Saturated Factorial Design

“…According to the authors of [20,21], the prediction of surface initiated RCF is in direct relation to the wheel-rail rolling contact behavior, e.g., the normal and tangential wheel-rail contact stresses, wheel-rail contact patch positions and shapes etc. In this section, firstly, the prediction model of surface initiated RCF based on the Shakedown theory is introduced.…”

“…The surface initiated RCF is related to the surface material ratcheting effect and low cycle fatigue [21]. At present, the shakedown theory is adopted to quickly and correctly identify the relation between the load level and the surface initiated RCF factors such as the material ratcheting effect and low cycle fatigue.…”

“…The local creepages will be calculated in this paper, and thus the partial slip conditions would also be expected. Based on shakedown theory, an index for prediction of rolling contact load resulting in material ratchetting was introduced in reference [21]. This index was based on a full-slip contact approach.…”