Influence of wheel hollowness and gauge widening on wheel–rail interaction and damage in heavy haul operations

Abstract

Heavy haul railway operations present significant maintenance challenges, particularly accelerated wear and Rolling Contact Fatigue (RCF) of wheels and rails. Measures like tighter maintenance limits, optimized wheel–rail profiles, and advancing maintenance technologies have helped mitigate RCF on tangent tracks, large-radius curves, and high (outer) rails of small radius curves. However, these efforts have been less effective in mitigating RCF on low (inner) rails of small-radius curves. Given a fixed infrastructure design, rolling stock fleet, and optimized wheel–rail profiles, variations in operational conditions and the progressive degradation of wheels and track significantly influence wheel–rail interaction. The literature highlights that wheel hollowness and track gauge widening are the primary contributors. Therefore, this study focuses on an in-depth examination of how variations in these two factors influence wear and RCF development. A multibody dynamic model of an iron ore wagon is developed using the GENSYS software. Measured track irregularities, and rail and wheel profiles representing various degraded conditions, are incorporated into the simulations. The results reveal that wear number and RCF index trends differ significantly between the two rails (high and low rails) of a curved track, with degradation in wheels and rails. Consequently, maintenance strategies primarily designed to address high rail wear, since it is typically more severe, do not fully mitigate issues on the low rail.

Keywords

Wheel–rail interaction / Rolling contact fatigue / Wear / Wheel hollowness / Gauge widening / Heavy haul

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Funding

European Union and Trafikverket(101101966)

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

The Author(s)