Development of an Efficient Conformal Contact Model for Railway Applications

This paper introduces a new conformal contact model for wheel-rail interaction, aimed at improving the prediction of vehicle dynamics, wear, and Rolling Contact Fatigue (RCF). Traditional models simplify wheel-rail interaction by assuming flat contact areas, but these assumptions are not valid in real-world scenarios such as curved tracks or worn surfaces, where the contact is conformal. The proposed model extends the classic Piotrowski’s contact model for the normal contact problem and the FASTSIM algorithm for the tangential contact problem, allowing the analysis of non-Hertzian and curved contact pathces. Implemented in MATLAB/Simulink, the model is compatible with multibody simulations, making it suitable for low computational complexity applications. Tests on a simplified railway vehicle model showed the model’s ability to accurately predict normal and tangential forces, pressure distributions, and local sliding. The model is useful for studying wear and RCF, and could be applied to real track and vehicle systems once experimentally validated.