Wheel wear prediction for high speed railway vehicles during acceleration

Wheel wear prediction for high-speed railway vehicles during the acceleration process is of great importance for the improvement of operating characteristics and the development of friction management strategy near the railway station, especially in complex climatic environments. This work analyzes and predicts the wheel wear evolution of high-speed motor cars during acceleration. Firstly, detailed dynamic models of the high-speed motor car are developed, in which a comprehensive gear transmission system is also adopted to capture the accurate dynamic responses of the motor car. Secondly, the length of the simulated track interval with different friction coefficients is set according to the Gaussian distribution function to consider the influence of the friction coefficient. Moreover, a Proportional-Integral(PI) creep controller is also introduced to meet the challenge due to varying wheel-rail contact conditions, and a wheel wear prediction model based on the aforementioned submodels is established to obtain the wheel wear evolution. Finally, simulation results of dynamic responses from the vehicle dynamic model and wheel wear prediction procedure are compared with the measured field data. The results show that the time-varying meshing stiffness from the gear transmission system will aggravate the interaction between wheel and rail and deteriorate the wheel wear. When the high-speed motor car passes through a poor adhesion zone in the acceleration, it is easier to trigger the creep controller at the low-speed period while it will not occur at the high-speed period.