The Effect of Surface Conditions on Wear of a Railway Wheel and Rail

Authors: A. Shebani, S. Iwnicki

Abstract:

Understanding the nature of wheel and rail wear in the railway field is of fundamental importance to the safe and cost effective operation of the railways. Twin disc wear testing is used extensively for studying wear of wheel and rail materials. The University of Huddersfield twin disc rig was used in this paper to examine the effect of surface conditions on wheel and rail wear measurement under a range of wheel/rail contact conditions, with and without contaminants. This work focuses on an investigation of the effect of dry, wet, and lubricated conditions and the effect of contaminants such as sand on wheel and rail wear. The wheel and rail wear measurements were carried out by using a replica material and an optical profilometer that allows measurement of wear in difficult location with high accuracy. The results have demonstrated the rate at which both water and oil reduce wheel and rail wear. Scratches and other damage were seen on the wheel and rail surfaces after the addition of sand and consequently both wheel and rail wear damage rates increased under these conditions. This work introduced the replica material and an optical instrument as effective tools to study the effect of surface conditions on wheel and rail wear.

Keywords: Railway wheel/rail wear, surface conditions, twin disc test rig, replica material, Alicona profilometer.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI): doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1126694

References:

[1] M. Hadfield and Y. Wang, Tribology in Environmental Design 2003: John Wiley & Sons, 2003.
[2] U. Ozsarac and S. Aslanlar, "Wear behaviour investigation of wheel/rail interface in water lubrication and dry friction," Industrial Lubrication and Tribology, vol. 60, pp. 101-107, 2008.
[3] R. Lewis, R. Dwyer-Joyce, U. Olofsson, and R. Hallam, "Wheel material wear mechanisms and transitions," 2004.
[4] J. Sundh, "On Wear Transitions in the Wheel–Rail Contact," PhD, Department of Machine Design, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, 2009.
[5] V. Reddy, G. Chattopadhyay, and D. J. Hargreaves, "Analysis Of Rail Wear Data For Evaluation Of Lubrication Performance," 2006.
[6] R. Lewis and R. Dwyer-Joyce, "Wear at the wheel/rail interface when sanding is used to increase adhesion," Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part F: Journal of Rail and Rapid Transit, vol. 220, pp. 29-41, 2006.
[7] D. Smejkal, "Effect of Sanding on Adhesion Under Oil and Water Condition Between Wheel and Rail," in The Latest Methods of Construction Design, ed: Springer, 2016, pp. 165-170.
[8] U. Olofsson and R. Lewis, "5 Tribology of the Wheel–Rail Contact," Handbook of railway vehicle dynamics, p. 121, 2006.
[9] S. S. Hsu, Z. Huang, S. D. Iwnicki, D. J. Thompson, C. J. Jones, G. Xie, et al., "Experimental and theoretical investigation of railway wheel squeal," Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part F: Journal of Rail and Rapid Transit, vol. 221, pp. 59-73, 2007.