A simple mechanism for the polygonalization of railway wheels by wear

Abstract A mechanism is presented which explains the growing non-circularity of railway wheels by wear as a result of the interaction between the deviation from the circle and the rotational inertia of the wheels. The behaviour of the model is investigated by perturbation techniques, including the method of multiple time scales. Results conform with observations: The faster the train the quicker surge lower harmonics of the non-circularity. The procedure can be applied to study various other wear mechanisms even such where wear is influenced by locally variable material characteristics.