The Influence of Worn Wheels on Railway Vehicle Dynamics and on their Interaction with the Track

摘要

To improve the efficiency and competitiveness of the railway transport, passengerrntrains have to travel faster, with high levels of safety and comfort. Furthermore, thernhigher demands for transportation of goods require more efficient railway freightrnsystems, which imply that freight vehicles are required to carry larger loads per axle.rnAs a consequence, railway and infrastructure companies continuously increase therndemands for vehicle requirements. These include maintaining the top operationalrnspeeds of trainsets during their life cycle, which requires assuring the wheel-railrncontact quality. This is a key issue in vehicle design and in train operation since itrnhas a significant impact on the safety and comfort of railway systems and on thernmaintenance costs of vehicles and infrastructures. The work presented here aims tornanalyse how the wear progression on the steel wheels affects the dynamic behaviourrnof trainsets and their interaction with the track. For this purpose a railway vehicle,rnassembled with new and worn wheels, is studied in realistic operation scenarios. Therninfluence of the wheel profile's wear state on the vehicle dynamic response isrnassessed here based on several indicators used in the railway industry.