Effect of wheelset flexibility on wheel–rail contact behavior and a specific coupling of wheel–rail contact to flexible wheelset

The flexibility of a train’s wheelset can have a large effect on vehicle–track dynamic responses in the medium to high frequency range. To investigate the effects of wheelset bending and axial deformation of the wheel web, a specific coupling of wheel–rail contact with a flexible wheelset is presented and integrated into a conventional vehicle–track dynamic system model. Both conventional and the proposed dynamic system models are used to carry out numerical analyses on the effects of wheelset bending and axial deformation of the wheel web on wheel–rail rolling contact behaviors. Excitations with various irregularities and speeds were considered. The irregularities included measured track irregularity and harmonic irregularities with two different wavelengths. The speeds ranged from 200 to 400 km/h. The results show that the proposed model can characterize the effects of flexible wheelset deformation on the wheel–rail rolling contact behavior very well.Graphical AbstractWheelset flexibility has a significant effect on vehicle–track dynamic responses in the medium to high frequency range. To investigate the effects of wheelset bending and axial deformation of the wheel web, a specific coupling of wheel–rail contact with a flexible wheelset is presented and integrated into a conventional vehicle–track dynamic system model. Both the conventional and proposed dynamic system models are used to analyze the effect of the wheelset bending and the axial deformation of wheel web on the wheel–rail rolling contact behaviors.

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