Proposed procedure and trial simulation of rail profile evolution due to uniform wear

A procedure for numerical simulation of rail wear and the corresponding profile evolution has been formulated. The wear is assumed to be uniform in the sense that the profiles remain constant along the track portion to be investigated. A simulation set is selected defining the vehicles running on the track, their operating conditions, and contact parameters. Several variations of input data may be included together with the corresponding occurrence probability. Simulation of multi-body dynamics is used to calculate contact forces and positions, and Archard's wear equation is applied for the calculation of wear depth. Wear coefficients as a function of contact pressure and relative sliding velocity are collected from different test results. Trial calculations of four non-lubricated and two lubricated curves with radii from 303 to 802 m show qualitatively reasonable results in terms of profile shape development and difference in wear mechanisms between gauge corner and rail head. The wear rates related to traffic tonnage are, however, overestimated and the lubrication efficiency underestimated. It is expected that model refinements in terms of environmental influence and contact stress calculation are useful to improve the quantitative results.