Development and validation of a wear prediction model for railway applications including track flexibility

The simultaneous prediction of wheel surface wear is one of the most challenging tasks in the railway field, which requires the knowledge of vehicle–track dynamics, rolling contact mechanics, and other tribological phenomena. In this paper, a new model for predicting wheel profile wear is presented to study in detail the characteristics of wear in the railway. The model is able to consider the effect of track flexibility on wheel wear evolution. The proposed modelling approach includes a vehicle–track coupled model for vehicle dynamical simulation, the local contact model for wheel–rail interaction, and an energetic approach for surface wear evaluation. The whole model has been validated by the comparison with experimental data coming from Chinese high-speed railway lines. The results show that the new model assures high computational efficiency as well as reaches a good prediction accuracy. The proposed model allows the investigation of the role played by different track parameters related to track flexibility on the wheel and rail wear evolution. The influence of the fastener and railpad stiffness on the wheel wear evolution is presented, using the proposed model.