A new wayside method for measuring and evaluating wheel-rail contact forces and positions

Abstract Wheel-rail contact forces affect the safety, stability, economy and smooth running of the railway system. Measuring these forces and their positions remains a challenge due to the coupling interference of strain signals under multi-loading scenarios. This paper proposes a new wayside method to measure the magnitudes and positions of the lateral and vertical contact forces. Theoretical formulations for the contact forces and their positions with respect to the vertical strain sum and difference at rail web sides, are derived by the results of finite element analysis (FEA). A subtle strain gauge configuration is designed to measure the sum and difference of strains precisely. The robustness of the formulas is confirmed through extra FEA and the proposed method is validated by laboratory tests. The developed method provides an accurate and economic option for monitoring the wheel-rail contact status.

[1]  Hao Gao,et al.  Indirect method for wheel–rail force measurement and derailment evaluation , 2014 .

[2]  A. Moreau.  La vérification de la sécurité contre le déraillement sur la voie spécialisée de Villeneuve-Saint-Georges , 1987 .

[3]  Habibollah Molatefi,et al.  Analysis of new method for vertical load measurement in the barycenter of the rail web by using FEM , 2013 .

[4]  R. Lewis,et al.  Real-Time Measurement of Dynamic Wheel-Rail Contacts Using Ultrasonic Reflectometry , 2019, Journal of Tribology.

[5]  E. Meli,et al.  An innovative model for the prediction of wheel - Rail wear and rolling contact fatigue , 2019, Wear.

[6]  D R Ahlbeck,et al.  TECHNIQUES FOR MEASUREMENT OF WHEEL-RAIL FORCES , 1980 .

[7]  Chong-Seok Chang,et al.  An experimental study of high speed wheel-rail adhesion characteristics in wet condition on full scale roller rig , 2019 .

[8]  Hiroyuki Sugiyama,et al.  Railroad Vehicle Dynamics: A Computational Approach , 2007 .

[9]  Cristiana Delprete,et al.  An easy instrument and a methodology for the monitoring and the diagnosis of a rail , 2009 .

[10]  Wing Kong Chiu,et al.  Structural Health Monitoring in the Railway Industry: A Review , 2005 .

[11]  Lin Zhao,et al.  Wayside testing methods for high-frequency vertical wheel-rail impact forces and its applicability , 2020 .

[12]  Rosario Chamorro,et al.  On the design of a scaled railroad vehicle for the validation of computational models , 2017 .

[13]  Davood Younesian,et al.  Optimal strain gauge placement in instrumented wheelset for measuring wheel-rail contact forces , 2017 .

[14]  Colin Cole,et al.  An inverse railway wagon model and its applications , 2007 .

[15]  C. Esveld.  Modern railway track , 1989 .

[16]  G. Malavasi,et al.  Estimation of the wheel-rail lateral contact force through the analysis of the rail web bending strains , 2017 .

[18]  Dragan Milković,et al.  Wayside system for wheel–rail contact forces measurements , 2013 .

[19]  Gabriele Malavasi,et al.  Self-Diagnosis Method for Checking the Wayside Systems for Wheel-Rail Vertical Load Measurement , 2018 .

[20]  Anil Kumar,et al.  Dynamics Analysis of Wheel Rail Contact Using FEA , 2016 .

[21]  A. Matsumoto,et al.  A new measuring method of wheel–rail contact forces and related considerations , 2008 .

[22]  Tadeusz Uhl,et al.  The inverse identification problem and its technical application , 2007 .

[23]  Jay Prakash Srivastava,et al.  Contact Stress Analysis in Wheel–Rail by Hertzian Method and Finite Element Method , 2014 .

[24]  Jorge Ambrósio,et al.  On the generation of an enhanced lookup table for wheel-rail contact models , 2018 .

[25]  W. Zhai,et al.  Experimental investigation on the characteristics of the dynamic rail pad force and its stress distribution in the time and frequency domain , 2020, Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part F: Journal of Rail and Rapid Transit.

[26]  Xuesong Jin,et al.  Three-dimensional elastic–plastic stress analysis of wheel–rail rolling contact , 2011 .

[27]  Georges Kouroussis,et al.  Review of Trackside Monitoring Solutions: From Strain Gages to Optical Fibre Sensors , 2015, Sensors.

[28]  J. Escalona,et al.  Wheel-rail contact force measurement using strain gauges and distance lasers on a scaled railway vehicle , 2020 .

[29]  Xincan Jin,et al.  A measurement and evaluation method for wheel-rail contact forces and axle stresses of high-speed train , 2020 .

[30]  Yu Ren,et al.  A new method for wheel–rail contact force continuous measurement using instrumented wheelset , 2019 .