Abstract: The vehicle system dynamic model of 25G passenger car equipped with 209P bogie is set up. The creep wheel/rail creep force and wheel/rail contact are analyzed when the passenger car operating on three typical curved tracks, in which the measured profiles of the wheels and rails from the sites are used. The analysis uses the rolling contact fatigue model described by a shakedown map and wheel damage function based on wear amount of wheel/rail to find the reasons of wheel tread damage. Additionally, the wheel tread damage is investigated at the sites. The obtained results indicate that the total creep force on the wheel of leading wheelset on the low rail of a curved track points to the third quadrant of the Cartesian coordinate system when the vehicle passing over the curved track. The creep force easily result in cracks on the wheel surface and their directions are approximately perpendicular to the creep force, and which is the almost same as the situation observed at the sites. The material in wheel rail contact patch is ratcheted, and the value of wheel damage based on damage function is larger than zero, that is, the wheel tread suffers from fatigue crack damage. With the curve radius decrease, the total creep force observably increases. The frequently passing over the sharp curves is the main reason of cracking and shelling the wheel tread field side.

Key words: Creep force, Damage function, Shakedown map, Wheel rail relationship, Wheel tread damage