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Modeling of Wheel/Rail Contact

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Book cover Rail Vehicle Dynamics

Abstract

All forces between wheel and rail (Fig. 3.1) act on a contact patch of a size of about 1.5 \(\mathrm{cm}^2\). The weight of the vehicle is translated through normal forces; the guidance through large-radius curves is provided by tangential forces; and during acceleration and braking, additional tangential forces in the circumferential direction of the wheel arise.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The rail profile is convex: the rails’ radius of curvature is mathematically positive, since the center of curvature is located on the inner normal. The wheel profile is concave: the radius of curvature is negative. The value \(R_\mathrm{R}\) in Fig. 3.6 is the radius of curvature of the rail profile (with accurate algebraic sign), while \(R_\mathrm{W}\) is the absolute value of the radius of curvature of the wheel.

  2. 2.

    In this case, it is the left wheel from the point of view of the observer traveling with the wheelset. The wheelset is moving out of the figure.

  3. 3.

    That is not necessarily the case for forward displacements of the contact point in tight curves.

  4. 4.

    Velocities on the rail occur, for instance, on a roller rig but also during investigation in the medium- and high-frequency ranges when the rail is no longer regarded as rigid and fixed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Technical University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Klaus Knothe

  2. KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

    Sebastian Stichel

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  1. Klaus Knothe
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Correspondence to Klaus Knothe .

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Knothe, K., Stichel, S. (2017). Modeling of Wheel/Rail Contact. In: Rail Vehicle Dynamics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45376-7_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45376-7_3

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