Study on Rail Rolling Contact Fatigue Model in Consideration of Transient Rolling Contact Solutions within Wheel-rail Contact Patch

doi:10.3901/JME.260060

Abstract

Abstract: Sharp curved rails are prone to severe rolling contact fatigue（RCF）, the initiation mechanism and fatigue life of which are directly related to the creep behavior within wheel-rail contact patch. With reference to the widely used RCF traditional damage function model, a 3D wheel-rail transient rolling contact model based on explicit finite element method is used as the main analytical tool to obtain the time-varying macroscopic, intra-patch microscopic wheel-rail rolling contact solution, and then a new damage function model is proposed with the intra-patch transient local wear number τγ_L as the independent variable to achieve the prediction of the intra-patch RCF distribution accurately. Taking the transient passage of a C80 wagon guiding wheelset in an 800 m radius curve of a heavy haul railway line as an example, firstly, the strong correlation between the macroscopic and intra-patch microscopic creep solutions is analysed to check the feasibility of the new damage function model. Secondly, a method of determining the relationship between the local wear numberτγ_L and the local damage value d_L is proposed based on the traditional damage function. Finally, the parameter variations are analysed to cover the range of loads that can lead to wheel/rail RCF. And a new damage function model is established for U75V quenched steel in heavy haul railway, in which RCF may occur when 0.69 MPa<τγ_L <3.04 MPa and be the most serious at τγ_L = 2.21 MPa. The traditional damage function predicts that there is also^*damage at the edge of the contact patch where the contact pressure is very low, and this anomaly is corrected by the new damage function model. Applied to the RCF prediction of heavy haul rail, it is found that the predicted fatigue zone is consistent with the field observation results, and the fact that the direction of crack extension fluctuates within a certain range can be explained by the damage distribution in the contact patch. More in-depth studies are needed to determine more precisely the key parameters of the new damage function model and the "wear reduction".

Key words: rolling contact fatigue, damage function, transient rolling contact of wheel/rail, damage distribution, heavily haul rails, explicit finite element method

CLC Number:

TG156

HU Bin, ZHAO Xin, ZHANG Xin, LUO Yifei, LU Liantao, WEN Zefeng. Study on Rail Rolling Contact Fatigue Model in Consideration of Transient Rolling Contact Solutions within Wheel-rail Contact Patch[J]. Journal of Mechanical Engineering, 2026, 62(2): 354-366.

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