Experimental Study on Rail/Wheel Wear for Various Contact Conditions

(Influence on wear development of wheel for contact positions between wheel and rail)

Abstract

Wheel / rail wear of railway is one of the serious problems affecting running stability, ride comfort, and maintenance frequency. Especially in urban railway, heavy wear occurs on the sharp curve section, clarifying the mechanism of wear development is essential in reducing wear. Therefore, experiments to clarify the influence of contact position on wear development was conducted by using 1/5 scaled wheelset test stand which can systematically change various parameters and easily control wear influence factors. This experimental unit consists of a single wheelset and rail rollers, and the wheelset runs on rail rollers that simulate rail. The experiment simulated wheel wear in a R400m radius curvature on the worn rail by using two types of worn rail roller. By verifying the wear rate, determined between the amount of wheel wear and the passing tonnage, and the contact state between rail roller and wheel, we found that wheels traveling on worn rail roller has larger wear rate than on new rail roller.