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Original Article

Effects of a thermal load on the wheel/

brake-block subsystem: The thermal
conicity of railway wheels

Proc IMechE Part F:

J Rail and Rapid Transit
0(0) 113
! IMechE 2014
Reprints and permissions:
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DOI: 10.1177/0954409714533106
pif.sagepub.com

Adam Manka and Marek Sitarz

Abstract
This paper describes the phenomenon of thermal conicity (TC) of railway wheels that occurs as the result of excessive
thermal loads generated in the process of braking using brake blocks and then cooling to ambient temperature. The TC
phenomenon is described using a standard BA004 railway wheel and load values derived from the TSI Rolling stock
guidelines. A methodology for determining the thermal loads created during braking is described, as well as the individual
stages of the creation of a model based on the finite element method.
Keywords
Railway wheel, brake block, plastic strain, stresses, thermal phenomena, thermal conicity of railway wheels, thermal
conicity
Date received: 11 November 2013; accepted: 1 April 2014

Introduction
In recent years, research institutes and development
centres associated with railway operators have conducted research aimed at determining the mechanical
and thermal loadings on various parts of a trains
wheel/ brake-block subsystem.1,2 These studies have
often been aimed at determining the boundary levels
of the loads, so that they could be considered at the
design stage of railway vehicles and their components
to ensure that they were operated within a safe loading range. A thorough understanding of the phenomena occurring during braking has a major impact on
safety levels and optimisation of a design, as well as
the utilisation of components of the wheel/ brakeblock subsystem.
Despite the many eorts made by those responsible
for the design, production and maintenance of components, vehicles and railway infrastructure, it is still
possible to encounter cases where an engine driver
continues to drive a train at normal line speed without
knowing that the brake system on a wagon has failed.
Such cases impose extreme thermal loads on wheels
and brake blocks, and this often results in an accident.3 Train wheels are also exposed to extreme thermal loads during normal usage. One example is the
descent of the St Gothard pass, which necessitates
continuous braking for over 30 min at an average
speed of 60 km/h. Such load conditions, even though
not very often met on other railways, constitute the
basis for the verication of railway wheels and brake

blocks. Loads corresponding to the descent of the St

Gothard Pass are reected in the guidelines regarding
the verication of railway wheels that can be found in
the TSI Rolling Stock4 and in the EN norm 13979-1.
Extreme thermal loadings of wheels can result in
cracks or chipping in the wheels rim or disc. There
are many published studies that document the direct
eects of such loads, see Figure 1, however, due to
their complex thermo-mechanical character, so far
they have not been fully characterised.5-13 In particular, no articles could be found in the literature that
present the results of simulations on train wheels and
take into account cyclic thermal loads, this would
allow the determination of the residual stress level
after intensive braking.
Subjecting a wheel to extreme temperatures leads
to both changes in the physicochemical qualities of
the material in the contact area between a wheels
surface and the brake block, and also to plastic
deformation of the material from which the wheel is
manufactured, resulting in an increase in the conicity
of its rolling area. The former will be discussed and
analysed in a separate publication, whereas the latter,

Department of Railway Transport, Silesian University of Technology,

Poland
Corresponding author:
Adam Manka, Department of Railway Transport, Faculty of Transport,
Silesian University of Technology, Katowice, Poland.
Email: adam.manka@polsl.pl

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a phenomenon that is subsequently referred to as the

thermal conicity (TC) of a railway wheel, is the subject of this paper.
The ndings presented in this paper constitute the
results of long-term research conducted at the
Department of Rail Transport, Faculty of
Transport, Silesian University of Technology with
the objective of identifying and analysing the phenomena that occur at the wheel/brake block/track subsystem during the operation and braking of a train.

Thermal loading of wheels and the

creation of a simulation model
The certication of railway wheels is always preceded
by a series of tests: numerical analysis, bench testing
and testing in an operational environment. Particular
attention is paid to the practical testing of railway
wheels subject to thermal loads. One of the publications that species the requirements concerning railway wheels is the Ocial Journal of the European
Union 2006/861/EC together with the subsequent
amendments which appear in 2009/107/EC containing
the European Commissions Decision of 28 July 2006
concerning the technical specication of interoperability relating to the subsystem Rolling stock freight
wagons of the trans-European conventional rail
system, often referred to as the Rolling stock (freight
wagons) TSI.4 This document describes, in detail,
guidelines concerning the examination procedures
for railway wheels to ensure that they meet the TSI
requirements. At the same time, it can be stated that
the requirements included in this document, regarding
the verication of railway wheels with respect to
thermal loads, are identical to the requirements
included in the EN 13979 norm, which forms the
basis for the above-mentioned document. The numerical and experimental verication procedure, along
with its deciencies, will be described in detail in
another paper.
The load values used for thermo-mechanical testing were chosen based on the EN 13979-1 and 2006/
861/EC norms, including the changes introduced with
the decision 2009/107/EC, in which the braking speed

was reduced from 80 to 60 km/h. On this basis, a

simulation was conducted of the situation where braking is performed at an applied braking power of
50 kW for 45 min (2700 s) at a speed of 60 km/h,
after which the railway wheel cools to ambient
temperature during the following 45 min.
The values of the thermal loads assumed in the
norm and the TSI are equivalent to the descent of
the St Gothard Pass. Thermal loads similar or greater
than the above-mentioned ones can occur during a
failure of the brake system or of the railway wheel.
Such accidents occur only rarely, however, a number
of publications have documented this phenomenon.3,12 In fact, we possess materials and fragments
of wheel and brake block elements from such
unfortunate failures of the brake system, which indicates that these failures do occur.
The research presented in this paper is performed
both on a wheel with a nominal diameter of 920 mm,
and on a wheel with a maximum operational wear
diameter of 854 mm as recommended in the
literature.4
An analysis of the operational conditions of railway wheels lead to the conclusion that the largest
loads on the wheels occur during braking. Thermal
loads constitute the greatest part of the overall
loads; they result from the heat generated by friction
eects during the braking.
It should be noted that on the basis of our research,
we can conclude that the largest stress levels that
occur in a railway wheel during its working life are
the result of lengthy braking; the created thermal
loads being added to the mechanical loads associated
with the dynamics of railway movement.2,6,14
The change in temperature that results from braking leads to the deformation of the ER7 steel material
from which the wheel is manufactured, the extent of
this deformation being proportional to the coecient
of thermal expansion of the steel.14,15 At the same
time, as a result of the temperature changes experienced by the wheel, its physical properties change.
The following factors and model parameters were
taken into account when constructing our numerical
model.

Figure 1. A cracked railway wheel formed by intensive braking and cooling12.

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1. The nonlinear geometry of a railway wheel.

2. The nite elements of a nonlinear shape function:
20-node hexagonal elements. This type of nite
element has sucient thermal and mechanical
degrees of freedom to allow a coupled eld analysis to be performed using ANSYS (release 13).
3. The values of the Youngs modulus, Rm parameter
and Poissons ratio were expressed in the nite
element model (FEM) as functions of the temperature of the wheel in the range 0740  C. However,
the model does not include the eects of
austenitisation of the steel. The thermal expansion
coecients, specic density, specic heat and thermal conductivity were expressed as functions of
the temperature of the wheel in the range
15420  C.16
4. A value of the convection coecient appropriate
to the region of the wheel was assigned in accordance with the ndings of our previous studies.2
5. The ER7 steel used in the wheel was modelled as
possessing changeable resilient-plastic properties
and a bi-linear model was used to represent the
material properties dependence on temperature
(see Figure 6).
6. Thermo-mechanical analyses were performed that
took into account transient changes in the thermal
phenomena over time, while simultaneously
taking into account structural changes including
the plasticity of the material.

In the course of the analysis, the wheel was subjected to an even ow of heat around its entire
circumference at the width of a brake block

Figure 2. The first FEM of the 920 mm diameter wheel.

(80 mm). Convection values and material properties

were adopted in accordance with the results obtained
in our previous studies.2
In the rst simulation runs, the wheel was subjected
to thermal loads equivalent to those resulting from
speeds of 60 km/h and an applied braking power of
50 kW over a time period of 2700 s (45 min). In the
latter part of the simulation i.e. 27005400 s the wheel
was cooled down to ambient temperature in order to
determine the residual stress level resulting from the
softening of the wheels material due to excessive thermal overloads. The analysis of the stress level in the
wheel due to thermal loads was conducted in a nonlinear manner. All the material properties were treated
as being dependent on the temperature.
It should be noted that the model does not take
into account the mechanical load resulting from the
weight of the vehicle, forces created by driving around
a curve and tangential forces resulting from braking.
This type of analysis will be carried out in future
work. However, the model does include the residual
stress level generated during the manufacturing process of the wheel and wheelset.
The simulations were performed using a model
made using the CATIA v5 software, see Figure 2,
by means of importing a wheels cross-section into
ANSYS (release 13) software. It was then split into
discrete elements and rotated in order to represent a
type BA004 railway wheel.
The splitting of the CAD model to create a FEM
was performed in a manner that produced octahedral
elements. This allowed the geometry of the wheel to
be closely represented using a model with only a small
number of degrees of freedom. Therefore, the rst
version of the numerical model was created using
nearly 13,000 hexagonal 20-node nite elements to
generate a nonlinear shape function. As a result of
the FEM analysis, a table was compiled that listed
total displacement, temperature, areas of material
softening and the distribution of reduced stresses (by
hypothesis Huber-Mises-Hencky (HMH)) in the
range 05400 s. This included 2700 s to represent the
end of the braking process (heating of the wheel) and
5400 s representing the state when the wheel has
cooled to ambient temperature (see Figure 5(e)).
In the rst set of simulations, the obtained results
were obtained to meet the requirements included in
Section. 1.1.4 Thermo-mechanical conformity assessment of 2006/861/EC, where it is stated that simulations need to be conducted in order to determine the
worst case in terms of the wheel geometry resulting
from its thermo-mechanical behaviour. At the same
time this requirement constitutes the basis for the
experimental research specied in the three-stage
wheel assessment process in Section 1.1.4.1 of 2006/
861/EC. After conducting a thorough analysis of the
simulation results, it was determined that the plasticity limit of the wheel material had been exceeded at
specic locations (see Figure 5) both at its rim and

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at its disc. Moreover, a signicant (from the point of

view of safety and the analysis of contact phenomena)
increase in the conicity of the rolling prole of the
wheel had occurred.
Due to the number of repetitive nonlinear calculations entailed in the simulations it was decided to conduct further analysis using a BA004 wheel with a
854 mm diameter split into 667 elements with a
nonlinear shape function, i.e. with elements of a 226
type solid (Figure 3) (ANSYS).
The most adverse load conditions aecting the
wheel were considered in the course of the modelling
of coupled thermo-mechanical phenomena; therefore,
the diameter of the wheel was taken to have the maximum permitted wear of 854 mm as well as thermal
loading resulting from braking using type K composite brake blocks. When using such brake blocks, it is
assumed that only 10% of the heat generated during
braking is dissipated through the brake blocks with
the remaining 90% adding to the thermal load on the
wheel.17
The reduction in the number of nite elements
required to create the model (from 13,000 to 667)
enabled calculation times to be achieved that allowed
the verication of a number of the analysis variables,
which in turn allowed the determination of the critical
value of thermal loading at which TC occurs. In fact,
the number of elements in the model is still large,
however, they were chosen on the basis of our previous studies on the accuracy of calculations taking into
account the thermal and mechanical loads. Those
analyses showed, for example, that changing the
number of nite elements used to create the crosssection of the wheel from eight to three results in maximum changes of: HMH stress of 2.8%, temperature
1.4% and displacements 2.1%.20
Apart from performing simulations of constant
braking from a speed of 60 km/h for 2700 s as

proposed in the TSI Rolling stock, which simulates

the movement of a train with a faulty brake system,
tests were also carried out for smaller thermal loads,
introduced for much shorter periods of time. These
simulations made it possible to state the critical
value at which TC and plastic deformation of a railway wheel begins to take place. Deformation of the
rolling surface will be described in a future paper.
In the model presented here, a heat ow q (units:
W/m2) is solely directed at the area where the wheel
is in contact with the brake block. The contact area S
of an r 0.8542 m radius wheel with a brake block of
width b 0.08 m is given by equation (1)
S 2rb 0:216 m2

Assuming that the braking power amounts to P 50

kW (as in 2006/861/EC4]) and that the percentage of
heat generated by breaking absorbed by the wheel4 is
Ak 90%, it is possible to determine the density of the
heat ow that should be applied in the model of the
wheel in the Heat Flux (HF [W/m2]) form in the
ANSYS programme (see equation (2))
q

Ak  P
208, 208 W=m2
S

The work created by friction forces is often used to

determine the amount of braking power required to
halt a train, however, in this case the requirements
included in 2006/861/EC make this unnecessary. For
comparison, as determined during numerous bench
and operational tests, during braking from a speed
of 125 km/h to a standstill, a vehicle with a total
weight per wheel of m 11,250 kg experiencing a
total brake block pressure on the wheel of 7.5 kN
stops, on average, within a distance of 833 m in 50 s.
Assuming for simplicity, a constant value of the

Figure 3. Model of the 854 mm diameter BA004 railway wheel used in the coupled mechanical/ thermal analysis.

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friction coecient  0.11 it turns out that the work

due to friction forces amounts to W 6.25 MJ, which
equates to an average braking force P 125 kW; that
is 2.5 times as more than in the analysed constant
braking case.

The mechanism of the creation of the TC

phenomenon
A detailed analysis of the results of the braking simulation as a function of time, rst braking between 0
and 2700 s (based on the specication in 2006/861/EC)
and cooling during the next 2700 s, allowed us to conrm the TC phenomenon as well as the stress levels of
the wheels disc and rim. This involved checking
changes in the radial (uz) and axial (uy) directions
(see Figure 5), as well as the stress levels of the
wheels rim and disc. The TC phenomenon, based
on the obtained results, is associated with exceeding
the plasticity boundary of the wheel disc during braking and subsequent cooling.
The individual phases of the development of the
TC phenomenon are described in Figure 4(a) and
the load in relation to material properties is shown
in Figure 5. Additionally, in order to graphically
show the development of the phenomenon, the visualisation of the changes in the distribution of the
stress levels and displacements was included in a
lm uploaded onto the internet.18
In the rst phase (Figure 4(a)), at time t1 the brake
blocks are applied to the wheels and braking is
initiated. This causes thermal loading on part of the
rolling surface area of the railway wheel. As a result of
heating, the wheel rim under the inuence of the thermal expansion of the material, moves in the radial
direction (uz), thereby increasing the rolling diameter,
and in the axial direction (uy) in a direction away
from the wheelset until time t2 (Figure 4(b)). At that
time the rim moves approximately parallel to the axle
of the wheelset.
Directly after the completion of braking (t3),
(Figure 4(c)), the wheel begins to cool due to convection and radiation eects. The outer part of the wheel
rim loses heat quicker (due to a smaller thermal capacity, enhanced heat transfer to the surroundings, signicant values of the t temperature dierences and
thermal gradients) and from greater temperatures
than the inner part of the wheel rim, which leads to
a twisting motion of the rim at time t4; this results in
an increase in the conicity of the rolling surface area
of the wheel i.e. the TC eect, (Figure 4(d)). It is particularly important that for the analysed case of braking for a time of 2700 s, the largest values of the stress
level, and at the same time the largest values of the
relative transfers to the outside part of the rim of the
wheel, were detected not just after the completion of
braking but after 450 s of cooling. The conicity itself
(understood here as the relative movement of the outside part of the rim in the radial direction) is about

1.13 mm when braking. The largest value of the conicity of 2.07 mm was reached approximately 8 min
after braking. After cooling to a temperature close
to ambient, the relative radial deformation reached
a level of 1.7 mm. At time t4, plastic deformation
takes place in the area of the wheel rim that turns
into the wheel disc, which was caused by the turn
of the wheel rim during the cooling down process as
previously described. It should be emphasised that the
temperature in this part of the wheel is signicantly
higher than in the part closer to the axle, leading to
the limiting of the durability of the wheel material
(ER7 steel). This phenomenon was reected in the
ANSYS analysis software by applying a bilinear characteristic to the material as a function of temperature
(Figure 5). Additionally, during the further cooling of
the wheel at time t5 (Figure 4(e)), thermal shrinkage
of the wheel rim occurs resulting in plastic deformation that leads to further distortion of the wheel disc;
however, in this area the temperature is close to ambient temperature. Further cooling to ambient temperature (at time t6, 2700 s after the completion of braking
(Figure 4(f)),) leads to the xing of the TC phenomenon and the creation of two zones in the wheel disc
that display high values of residual stress
(Figure 4(g)). In the examined wheel, the maximum
permitted stress values were also exceeded in the area
where the wheel is in contact with the brake block.
This phenomenon is described in detail in another
paper.17 As already mentioned, after the wheel had
completely returned to ambient temperature, a
radial deformation occurred TC uzw 1696 mm
(in the radial direction causing a reduction in the
wheel diameter at this location of 3.4 mm).
The diagrams in Figure 5 presents the distribution
of reduced stress on the wheels cross-section at the
time of 2700 s (end of braking: Figure 5(a)) and at
the time of 5400 s (end of cooling: Figure 5(b)). They
show that the distribution of braking stress is substantially dierent during cooling. During braking
and immediately afterwards, the maximum stress
levels occur on the internal and external sides of
the wheel disc at points C and E (Figure 5). Figure
5(c) shows that the material becomes plastic at
points C and E after 300 s of braking (this occurs
at a much earlier time at points A, B and D). It
should be noted that the temperature at these
points was much lower than at the points A, F, B
and D (Figure 5(d)), which in turn has a direct inuence on the durability of the material (Figure 5(e)).
High values of reduced HMH stress were also
detected near the passing area of the disc to the
wheel hub (on its internal side). These stress levels
are caused by the relatively large thermal deformations of the wheel rim (at point F at the time
2700 s radial deformation uz 2.889 mm and axial
deformation uy 2.609 mm), which in turn results
in the stretching of the wheel disc and plastic
deformation at points C, E and G.

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Rapid cooling of the wheel takes place immediately

after the braking. In the rst period the residual stresses generated in the earlier phase of braking decrease,
but just after this period a rapid growth in the stress
level takes place and a reversal of the sign i.e. a
change in the character of the stress from tensile to
compressive stress occurs. As has been mentioned earlier, the maximum stress levels in a wheel occur not

immediately after cooling has taken place, but rather

approximately 8 min after the completion of braking
(3100 s) from the beginning of the simulation. This
fact is also reected in the TC of the rolling surface
area of the wheel, i.e. relative deformation of a point
in the radial direction uzw 2.066 mm (Figure 6).
However, it should be noted that the conicity at the
time of cooling has a transitory character uzwmax

Figure 4. Development stages of thermal conicity of railway wheels subject to long-term thermal loads representing a brake failure
at a speed of 60 km/h and a stopping time 2700 s (load as on bench testing4).

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Figure 5. Outline of the development of TC.

Figure 6. Deformation in radial direction of point A as compared to point F (TC 1.696 mm).

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(Figures 6 and 7). For the simulation of constant

braking for a period of 2700 s (as in 2006/861/EC4),
plastic deformation begins to occur in the area where
the wheel disc to wheel ring AQ (point D in
Figure 5(a)) from a time of approximately 300 s.
After the wheel temperature has equalised with the
ambient temperature, the TC value measured along
uzw, i.e. moving point A towards point F in the
radial direction, amounts to TC 1.696 mm (the
actual value has a minus sign due to the reduction
of the diameter of the wheel in the section containing
point A). At that point this deformation already has a

permanent character and causes a change in the interplay between the wheel and the track, and most
importantly an increase in the residual stress level of
the wheel disc. On the next occasion that braking
results in thermal loads exceeding the critical value
the residual stress level of the wheel at point D will
grow. Figure 8 presents a diagram of the stress distribution on the wheels cross-section in the next stages
of the simulation of braking and cooling of the wheel.
The stress distributions due to the action of braking
are presented as a lm that has been uploaded onto
the internet18; this approach facilitates the

Figure 7. Changes in the radial and axial deformations at points A and F of the train wheel during braking and cooling down.

Figure 8. Distribution of reduced HMH stress levels in the train wheel in the consequent stages of braking (from 0 to 2700 s) and
cooling (from 2700 to 5400 s).

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visualisation of the described phenomenon. In order

to better depict the TC phenomenon, the wheel transfers are presented at a magnication of 10-fold and
20-fold (the stresses were left unchanged).
The temperature distributions presented in
Figure 9 indicate that the temperature due to the
eect of friction reaches its maximum value after
2700 s. At this point, radiation plays an important
role in heat exchange; however, this was not included
in the simulation due to the simplications that had to
be applied in order to be able to perform dozens of
separate simulations.
At this point, it should be noted that the residual
stress levels result in the compression of the wheel
disc, however, due to bending of the disc in fact
both compressive and tensile stresses are created, see
Figure 10. The rolling surface area of the wheel, and
in particular the area of the joint of the wheel and the
brake block, also experience plastic deformations.

Figure 9. Temperature field in the train wheel after the

completion of braking (2700 s).

As can be noticed in Figure 10, a wheel that is

subjected to thermal loads as a result of braking
using brake blocks is subject to not only a compressive stress but also to a tensile stress, which is particularly important from the point of view of the
operational safety of railway wheelsIt is signicant
that after the braking and cooling of the wheel the
residual stress remains due to braking (Figure 11)
and additionally the geometry of the rolling surface
is also changing (Figure 12).
The distributions of plastic strains presented in
Figures 13 and 14 dier from one another with the
braking area and point C (Figure 5); however, a
detailed analysis of the phenomena that occur in the
area where friction occurs will be included in a separate article.

The importance of the TC phenomenon

In the event of a TC phenomenon occurring during
operational conditions, a Rolling Stock Examiner will
probably not be able to detect that it occurred.19 Only
if discolouration of the railway wheel occurs is it likely
that Rolling Stock Examiner will understand that
excessive braking has taken place.
This is the result of not only a dearth of information about the phenomenon and the absence of a test
procedure but also the lack of a measuring methodology for changes in conicity. Indeed, the current
measurement systems (prolometers) allow for the
precise measurement of the rolling prole but do
not relate it to the wheelset axle, as they are based
on the internal at surface of the wheel ring and the
rolling diameter. Therefore, an indirect measurement
method is presented in the next section.
Due to the stress distribution and the possibility of
detecting material changes resulting from thermal
loads, the possibility of verication exists after
damage of the wheel has taken place due to cyclical
thermal loads and the TC phenomenon. The residual
stress level may be veried and removed by the application of a resonance method,20,21 this leads to the

Figure 10. Distribution of the stress in the yz-plane (deformation magnified 10-fold).

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Proc IMechE Part F: J Rail and Rapid Transit 0(0)

conclusion, that in the course of everyday operation a

partial relaxing of the stress level is possible in the case
of cyclical resonance deformations and the
Bauschinger eect, which manifests itself by the lowering of the plasticity threshold, when successive stress
levels reverse sign.
It is also possible that during normal service, and
turning of railway wheels the TC will be re-proled
but the conicity of the rim remain.

Proposed measurement method of the

TC value
As has already been mentioned, currently TC is not
being measured. Therefore, we propose that measurements of TC are performed based on the methodology
presented in Figure 15. It should be noted that due to
the shorter measuring base, the sensitivity of the
measurement signicantly decreases, however, the
method presented in Figure 15 eliminates the need
to take into account operational wear in the rolling
area.
The measurement performed in this way should be
related to the conicity measured as uzw, i.e. the radial
movement of point A towards point F the relative
radial transfer relative urw in such a way as to allow
the measurement of the deformation on a short measuring base see equation (3)
b
ur  uzw uyw  ,
a

where: ur is the change in wheel radius at point A

resulting from the TC phenomenon (unit: mm) if the
radial transfer of point F of the railway wheel is
negligibly small; uzw is the movement in the radial
direction of point A of the railway wheel is towards
point F (unit: mm); uyw is the movement in the axial

direction of the contact point of the measuring

device with the wheels ring (unit: mm); and a
and b are characteristic distances, as shown in
Figure 15.
Therefore it is proposed to quantitatively describe
the magnitude of the TC phenomena as a unit of
length as uzw, e.g. in millimetres, and then as the TC
reaches its nal uzw value after the wheel has cooled to
ambient temperature. For example, for the studied
braking over 2700 s the TC value 1.696 mm
(Figure 6).

Conclusions and directions for future

study
Due to the relatively short period of time during
which this phenomenon has been studied, a series of
questions exists that need be answered by carrying out
the appropriate research. In our opinion the following
areas need further study.
1. The experimental verication of the TC phenomenon on a suciently large number of railway
wheels.
2. The identication of the critical value of thermal
loading qTCk, at which the TC phenomenon
appears.
3. The analysis of the inuence of cyclical thermal
loads above qTCk.
4. Analysis of the inuence of the TC and changing
railway wheel prole on wheel/rail contact,19 vehicle dynamic, Y/Q critical parameters and safety of
train moving.
5. Analysis of the inuence of the shape of the wheel
disc including the direction of deections on the
TC phenomenon.
6. Analysis of the inuence of the magnitude of the
TC eect.

Figure 11. Distribution of HMH stresses in the railway wheel at time 6000 s, i.e. after the long-term braking (2700 s) and cooling
until 6000 s).

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7. Practical research of the properties of wheel

materials subjected to cyclical TC loads.
Despite the need for further work associated with the
analysis of the TC phenomenon, the following conclusions are drawn from the performed studies.
1. The TC phenomenon has an important bearing on
the railway wheel and its thermal and mechanical
loading, particularly when the loading occurs in a
cyclical manner.
2. At particular stages of the TC phenomenon, the
plasticity threshold of the material is exceeded;
this occurs both in regions where high temperatures related to braking are recorded and in
regions at ambient temperature leading to the
development residual stresses, both in compression and expansion.
3. The TC phenomenon, due to the signicant radial
and axial deformations (permanent and temporary), inuences the dynamics of the movement of
a railway vehicle and the change of the geometry

4.

5.

6.

7.

Figure 12. Maximum dimension changes in the radial direction after braking and cooling (uz-direction).

of the wheel/ track contact (also the wheel/ brake

block contact); however, no results exist to allow
analysis of this problem. In the analysed case of
braking for a period of 2700 s and subsequent
cooling, TC of the wheel was detected as well as
the permanent deformation of point A of the
wheel
towards
point
F
(Figure
5)
TC uzw 1.696 mm (in the radial direction,
resulting in a reduction of the wheel diameter by
3.4 mm).
The excess cyclic loading of the rolling surface of
the wheel in the contact area with the brake block
is directly connected with the TC phenomenon,
which is described in detail in another paper.
The results obtained on the change in the distribution of the stress level in a wheel subjected to
excessive thermal loading, including residual stresses, allow the quantitative determination of the
actual thermal loads experienced by the wheel in
the past (history of loading). This may be signicant in the reconstruction of the damage on wheels
(e.g. in the case of railway accidents). As has been
presented in this paper, it can be measured particularly easily at points C, D and A of the railway
wheel (adequate to test the wheels structure).
Based on the reported results, it is concluded, that
a verication programme for railway wheels based
on the guidelines included in the TSI Rolling
stock and in the EN norm 13979-1 is not t for
purpose. This is only from the point of view of the
TC phenomenon but also due to the lack of verication of occurrences taking place on the wheel.
This is particularly important in terms of safety
and reliability. This problem will be further discussed in future publications.
The critical values of thermal loading associated
with braking (qTCk), after which the TC phenomenon may occur was subjected to detailed analysis
and the results will be included in a future publication. However, it is possible to summarise that

Figure 13. Distribution of plastic deformations based on the HMH hypothesis; calculated on the assumption of the crossing of the
plasticity boundary by reduced stresses.

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Proc IMechE Part F: J Rail and Rapid Transit 0(0)

Figure 14. Distribution of plastic deformations (ANSYS - equivalent plastics strain) calculated as exceeding the plasticity limit in any
chosen direction.

Figure 15. Outline of the proposed TC measurement system.

in the case of constant braking from a speed of 60

km/h using a braking power of 50 kW (in a similar
way to braking based on the TSI for a period of
2700 s) the occurrence of TC will take place for the
examined wheel, after a time of 150 s. This determination will be discussed in detail in a future
publication).
8. Cyclical wheel loads exceeding the qTCk value
lead to an increase in residual stress level.
9. Due to the fact that currently there is no way for a
rolling stock examiner to measure the TC value in
operational conditions, a method to measure this
value is presented and a unit is proposed to quantitatively describe the TC phenomenon as a relative deformation in the radial direction of the
outside edge of the wheel rim in relation to the
top of the ange (Point F in Figure 5).
10. Additionally, in order to better depict the TC phenomenon an animated lm showing the changes in
stress levels and transfers (in 10:1 scale) has been
uploaded onto the internet.

We hope that this topic will be analysed by other

researchers whose critical approach towards the these
and ndings presented will enrich our own ndings
and will result in the further development of science
and research with respect to the analysis of the mechanical and thermal loading of railway wheels.
Funding
This paper reports work carried out within the authors own
research programme in the Department of Rail Transport,
Faculty of Transport, Silesian University of Technology
funded under grant PBU-11/RT4/2011.

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