Wheel-rail dynamic interaction

A better understanding of wheel-rail dynamic interaction is necessary for the capacity increase of railway transportation. This chapter briefly introduces the consequences, modeling and detection methods of wheel-rail dynamic interaction, and maintenance of the weak track spots where wheel-rail dynamic interaction often occurs. Wheel-rail dynamic interaction causes high-amplitude vibration and noise and accelerate structural degradation. Owing to the capabilities of handling nonlinear material properties and arbitrary contact geometries and considering dynamic effects, the explicit finite element approach is proposed to model wheel-rail dynamic interaction. Three numerical examples are presented to simulate wheel-rail impacts, frictional instability, and flange contact, respectively; and Rayleigh waves are observed in the simulation results. Wheel-rail dynamic interaction-related problems can be detected with the measurements of wheel-rail contact force, axle box acceleration, and track vibration. The weak track spots can be maintained by stiffness, geometric controls, and friction management.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Railway Engineerin