Wheel-rail interaction and damage in switches and crossings

Dynamic interaction between a railway freight vehicle and a track switch is studied by simulations of vehicle dynamics. In particular, the influence of a stochastic spread (scatter) in traffic parameters on damage in the switch is assessed. The considered parameters are wheel profile and wheel–rail friction coefficient. To form a database for sampling, 120 wheel profiles from freight wagons in traffic have been measured and categorised with respect to wear. Among the investigated parameters, it is shown that equivalent conicity is the wheel profile parameter correlating best to damage in the switch and crossing panels. The influence of hollow worn wheels on damage is also investigated and it is found that such wheel profiles display a different running behaviour at the crossing transition. Convergence properties for samples of runs generated by Latin Hypercube Sampling (LHS) are compared to the corresponding properties obtained by pure random sampling. It is concluded that the LHS generated samples exhibit a smaller variance