Abstract: A thermo-mechanical coupling elastic-plastic plane strain finite element model is established by using the finite element code ABAQUS. A bilinear plasticity model is used. The heat-convection between the rail surface and ambient and temperature-dependent material properties are taken into consideration in the numerical model. The movement of boundary condition is used to simulate the movement of wheel/rail contact patch. The effects of different friction coefficients and wheel loads on the temperature fields and residual stresses in the rail are investigated in detail. The numerical results show that the maximum surface temperature rise occurs close to the edge of tail half axle of the contact patch. The temperature rise affected zone exists in the 1.6 mm depth range of rail surface. The maximum Von Mises equivalent stress occurs about 0.2 mm in the surface layer of rail. The influencing depth of the residual stresses and the residual strains is about 10 mm. The residual stress near the rail surface with thermal effect is larger than that without thermal effect. The temperature of the rail near the surface increases with increasing the friction coefficient and the axle load. The residual stresses near the rail surface increase with increasing the friction coefficient. But the effect of the axle load on the residual stresses near the rail surface is not obvious, while on the residual stresses in the subsurface layer of rail is significant.

Key words: Elastic-plastic analysis, Finite element method, Stress, Temperature rise, Thermo-mechanical coupling, Wheel/rail friction