Modelling the Dynamic Behaviour of the Wheel-Rail Interface by Using a Novel 3D Wheel-Rail Contact Model

Methods for multibody modelling and simulation should accurately replicate the dynamic behaviour of rail-wheel interface including precise values for wheel-rail contact positions. This paper studies the development of a novel 3-D wheel-rail contact model which is used for dynamic simulation of a suspended wheelset with parameters listed for a typical Mark IV coach. The contact point locations on the wheel and rail are determined by the minimum difference method considering the lateral displacement, yaw angle and the roll angle. The proposed new 3D wheel-rail contact model can be applied in railway condition monitoring techniques to estimate the wheel geometry parameters and thus to achieve practical optimised wheel-rail interfaces