Analytical Approach to Vibration Analysis Of the Wheel-rail contact

Wheel/rail contact simulation is one of the most complicated problems in the modeling of railway vehicles. The wheel/rail interaction plays a unique role in rail vehicle dynamics. In this paper, the dynamic response of the wheel on irregular rail track is analyzed with analytical approach using the method of Multiple Scales (MMS). The Hertzian contact theory is used to obtain the relationship between normal contact force and the displacement of the mass center of the wheel. Analytical approach is expanded for performance of train’s wheel travelling on the rail. To validate the method presented in this paper, responses of the model using MMS method are compared with the results obtained from the Runge–Kutta numerical solution. Finally effects of the wheelset preload on response frequency have been studied.

Keywords:

Wheel-rail contact , Hertz elastic contact , Method of Multiple Scales , Runge–Kutta method