Modelling rail vehicle dynamic load variation and bearing wear

摘要

Rail bearing maintenance is a significant cause of expense within the railway industry. In order to be able to better characterise wheel bearing wear development in rail vehicles, an investigation into the key rail vehicle dynamic scenarios and the subsequent variations in applied bearing loads within normal operation has been conducted. The work includes the development of a dynamic model that determines the variation in loading applied to a rail vehicle’s bearings during normal operation. This model is based on load changes that occur due to vehicle cornering, acceleration and braking. A geographic survey of Brisbane’s Ipswich to Roma St railway line has been conducted, and the velocity evolution of a passenger train navigating the line has been determined using a conservative “perfect-driver” model. A subsequent simulation of dynamic bearing load variations has been implemented, based on an IMU160 passenger train unit traversing the given track section. It was found that the bearing load variation due to vehicle dynamics is significant along this section of track; it was found that the bearing load increased by as much as 19%. This result indicates that the development of mild wear in bearings could see a corresponding proportional increase. It is recommended that the found bearing applied load variations are used within a simulation of mild wear in order to quantify this relationship