Study on the effect of the fastener support structure on rail corrugation in metros based on the friction-induce vibration

Abstract

Rail corrugation is very serious in Cologne egg fastener track; effective control measures are still lacking. The cause of the corrugation wear on a curved metro track is analyzed based on the friction-induced vibration theory. A finite element model is established to study the frequency domain and time domain features of the friction-induced oscillation of this system. The influences of the fastener spacing and the fastener support length on the corrugation wear are investigated to develop countermeasures. The simulation results show that the friction-induced vibration of the wheel-track system is the wavelength-fixed mechanism of the corrugation wear of rail of the curved Cologne egg fastener track. There are two reasons why the low rail corrugation wear is more serious. The contact resultant force between the low rail and the wheel is obviously bigger than that between the wheel and the high rail, resulting in a higher wear rate of the low rail. The contact force fluctuation of the low rail caused by the friction-induced vibration is more severe, resulting in a higher corrugation wear evolution speed on the low rail. The friction-induced oscillation cannot be eliminated only by adjusting the fastener support length and spacing. However, the long-wavelength corrugation wear instead of the more harmful short-wavelength corrugation wear can be produced by adjusting the fastener support length and the fastener spacing to alleviate the influence of corrugation wear on the vehicle-track system.