Evaluation of subsurface contact stresses in railroad wheels using an elastic half-space model

Railroad wheels fail in two main modes: rolling surface defects like spalling, shelling and wear, and internal defects including cracks propagating after a change takes place in the original stress pattern. Although the effects of the latter are almost always catastrophic, the former is more usual. The onset of rolling surface defects depends on the strength of the surface and the applied loads. The strength is related to surface hardness and can be determined through experimental evaluation under controlled conditions. Evaluating the loads is one of the challenges for contact researchers. This paper presents the evaluation of the stress field inside elastic rolling bodies with an elliptic area of contact. This kind of model can be applied to wheel-rail contact phenomena. Typical high freight transportation loads are used in conjunction with regular recommended wheel and rail sizes. The results have shown that shear stress reaches the maximum magnitude below the surface of contact, and this explains the presence of shelling defects in service. They have also shown that a new model including plasticity is required, because the range of the stresses reached surpasses, by far, the elastic limi