Abstract: Wheel/rail wear problems would affect the stability and safety of a train. In order to study the wear pattern of the subway rail, a frictional work calculation method based on wheel-rail contact calculation, using finite element method (FEM), is proposed. The effects of different traction or braking force and lateral displacement on the wheel-rail contact area are analyzed to predict the wear amount and the worn profiles of the rail, and to study how the passing times of wheels effect on rail's wear. As the research results showed, the frictional work is directly related to the frictional forces and relative displacements of the contact point, which accords with the physical meaning of the work. Also, using the frictional work calculation method to predict the wear amount is basically consistent with the measured results. Under the conditions of traction or braking forces and different lateral displacements, the distribution law of the frictional work is small in the middle, large at the back and both sides, and it corresponds to the distribution law of the adhesion zone and the creep zone on the contact spot. In the contact area, the law of accumulative wear amount along the lateral direction is high in the middle and low on both sides, and the wear depth increases approximately in proportion to the passing times. Using the calculation results by FEM to predict the rail wear, the simulation results basically fit those measured datas. Furthermore, comparing with the standard model, the prediction results of the worn model are closer to the measured ones.

Key words: FEM, frictional work, wear prediction, wheel-rail contact