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Rail wear modelling

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Rail Wear Modelling Concept for Heavy Haul Locomotive Study

Y.Q. Sun1,2, N. Mandal1,2, Q. Wu1,2, P. Wolfs1,2, M. Spiryagin1,2

1
Centre for Railway Engineering, Central Queensland University, Rockhampton, Australia
2
Australasian Centre for Rail Innovation, Canberra, Australia

ABSTRACT: Comprehensive locomotive models, including motor components, have been developed us-
ing the GENSYS software package to study the effect of locomotive high adhesive traction on rail wear
damage. The simulations require DC and AC locomotives to run on a sharp curved track with radius of
240 m at a constant speed of 20 km/h. It is assumed the locomotives are under their maximum traction ef-
forts. Also, a modified FASTSIM algorithm was taken into account with a variable friction coefficient to
accommodate the situation after the saturation point. The simulations show that the change from a DC
locomotive with a maximum traction torque of 388 kNm to an AC locomotive with 510 kNm, an increase
of 31.4%, will cause an increase of the maximum wheel-rail wear index by a quite significant 68.4%. For
simulations at the relatively low speed of 20 km/h, the overall wear numbers on the low rail are always
larger than those on the high rail regardless of the type of locomotive. In addition, almost all wheels of
the AC locomotive cause severe rail wear conditions.

1 INTRODUCTION

This case study is related to a heavy haul research project, initiated by the Australasian Centre for Rail
Innovation and its industrial partners, that seeks to provide a new and systematic approach to evaluate
wear, fatigue and damage for wheels and rails under various train operational and wheel/rail contact char-
acteristics. The application of heavy haul locomotives that realise high adhesion forces may lead to an in-
crease of wear intensity sufficient to cause failure of rails on curved sections of the track. Some prelimi-
nary estimations show that the friction conditions at the wheel-rail interface can significantly change the
wear pattern under heavy haul train operational scenarios that means that high traction forces applied to
the rail under various friction conditions can increase wear rates by up to six times at the same level of
MGT transported on identical freight operations.
This can be fully dependent on the parameters used in the adhesion control systems that are themselves
also strictly dependent on train operational conditions and strategies. Taking into account that we nowa-
days have not only variations of these parameters, but also a variety of track infrastructure (rail materials,
track structure, etc.) used on heavy haul routes in Australia, this requires the development of a rail wear
modelling concept able to integrate consideration of all these issues and determine indicative rates of wear
and limitations of contract stresses by means of the application of advanced simulation approaches. There
is relatively good correlation among the types of rail damage, the number of rail grinding operations
(Spiryagin et al., 2014), the profile of the rail, and the radius and superelevation of curves. The number of
rail grinding operations typically increase with increasing superelevation and decrease with increasing
curve radius (Cuervo et al., 2015). The effect of curve radius on the wear and RCF of wheel steels under
dry conditions was investigated on a wheel/rail testing machine (He et al., 2014). The results indicate that,
with a decrease in curve radius, the wear volume of wheel steels increased, the plastic flow layer became
thicker and uneven, and the fatigue crack propagation in the wheel steel intensified. Wheel-rail contact
wear has greatly concerned the railway companies around the world and the cost of rail replacement and
repair due to wear and RCF is considerable; for example, the railroad industry in the United States of
America spends approximately $2 billion USD yearly on rail replacement and repairs (Hernandez et al.,
2007).
In this paper, in order to investigate the wheel-rail wear damage on a curved track, locomotive dynamic
behaviours are simulated using GENSYS multibody software and a wheel-rail contact wear model is ap-
1
plied to predict the wear rates. The effects of curve radius and train speed on wheel-rail wear are exam-
ined. Solutions to reduce the wheel-rail wear are suggested.

2 WHEEL-RAIL CONTACT WEAR MODELLING

Many theoretical studies and experiments have been undertaken to investigate the mechanisms behind
wheel-rail rolling contact wear. Rail wear computation and analysis has usually been conducted by using
a commercial multi-body system (MBS) software package to study the rail vehicle dynamic behaviours
and a rail wear prediction model to compute the wear, i.e., the progressive amount of material being re-
moved from the rail surfaces. At present, there are mainly three wear models (Pombo et al., 2011) devel-
oped by the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), British Rail Research (BRR) and the University of
Sheffield (USFD) respectively, based on correlating the energy dissipated in the wheel-rail contact patch
with the amount of worn material to be removed from the contacting surfaces. The energy is calculated
using the normal or tangential forces (creep forces) and the relative slip velocities (creepages), which are
then related to the computation of the amount of wear. These wear functions can be implemented in a
computational tool and can be selected alternatively to perform the wear studies.
The KTH wear model is based on Archard’s wear law (Telliskivi and Olofsson, 2004). Archard’s law is
applicable only in the slip region of the contact patch and assumes that the volume of worn material Vwear
[m3] is proportional to the normal contact force N [N] and the sliding distance d [m], and inversely pro-
portional to the hardness H [N/m2] of the softer of the two materials in contact, the relationship being ex-
pressed as:
(1)
where the parameter represents the Archard’s wear coefficient that depends on the normal pressure
on the contact area and on the slip velocity , and can be determined from Fig. 1.
Applicability to the specific materials involved in the tests is avoided by the KTH method by consider-
ing different sets of experimental data. This makes it independent of the materials but, unavoidably, intro-
duces an approximation in the method.
The amount of wheel-rail contact wear is calculated using Archard’s law combined with FASTSIM
(Johansson et al., 2011). To obtain the wear model, that is the dependence of the wear rate from the con-
tact parameters, simulation of wear between wheel flange and side face of the rail head when a vehicle
moves through a curve was used. Performing such a simulation requires wear processes to be character-
ised by the wear rate, worn surface features, size, morphology, and colour of wear debris. The wear rate
was studied as a function of the parameter pλ, where p is the contact pressure (in MPa) and λ is the rela-
tive slippage (Zakharov and Zharov, 2002). Wear was investigated in terms of wear rate under various
working conditions (Donzella et al., 2005). The physical understanding of wear mechanisms is, however,
far from a mathematical description of the damage rate.
In the BRR wear model, the wear number Tγ was first introduced by the early British Rail researchers
(Braghin et al., 2006) who defined it as the energy expended per unit distance travelled calculated for
each wheel-rail contact. Tγ is defined as the dot product of creep force and creepage (J/m or N) (San-
tamaria et al., 2009) based on experimental work which has shown that the amount of metal removed
through wear is proportional to the energy expended in the wheel–rail contact. Based on the relationship
between Tγ/A (A is the wheel-rail contact patch area in mm2) and wear rate (W/(A·d)) in µg/m/mm2 (W is
the weight loss and d is the distance rolled), three rail wear regimes can be identified: mild (mostly top
wear), severe and catastrophic (mostly side and corner wear) as illustrated in Fig. 2 (Ignesti et al., 2012,
Tassini et al., 2010). In the mild regime, wear appears to be dominated by surface oxidation, whereas in
the severe and catastrophic regimes, it is dominated by surface cracking and material loss by spalling.
Generally, within the severe wear regime, wear rate is proportional to Tγ/A.
Based on the Tγ, the wheel profile wear was predicted (Pearce and Sherratt, 1991). From the time histo-
ry of the response, the position of the contact on the wheel and the wheel-rail creep forces and creepages
are correlated and summed to give a material loss distribution across the wheel profile and hence produce
a small change in profile shape. The optimal design of wheel profile for railway vehicles took into ac-
count the need for minimum wear of wheels, rails and stability of wheelset and cost efficiency of design
(Shevtsov et al., 2005), with consideration of the Tγ.

2
Figure 1 Wear chart of Archard’s model; Figure 2 Wear regimes identified during twin disc testing of
BS11 rail material vs. Class D tyre material (Lewis and Olofsson, 2004).

The USFD wear model (Lewis and Olofsson, 2004, Braghin et al., 2006, Santamaria et al., 2009, Ignes-
ti et al., 2012, Tassini et al., 2010 ), defines a wear rate expressed by the weight of lost material
(µg) per distance rolled (m) per contact area A (mm2), which is proportional to the wear number Tγ as fol-
lows:

(2)
where is an empirical wear constant that depends on the contacting materials. For the contact be-
tween R8T wheel material and UIC60 900A rail material (Braghin et al., 2006, Santamaria et al.,
2009), the wear rate can be expressed as:

(3)

The above equations in the USFD wear model are based on twin disk experimental data and the mate-
rials used to assemble the vehicle and track.

3 METHODOLOGY TO STUDY WHEEL-RAIL WEAR

The methodology proposed for this study can be divided into the following stages:
• Introduction of hypothetical heavy haul route;
• Definition of initial train/locomotive operational conditions and configuration;
• Simulation of longitudinal train dynamics;
• Wear modelling;
• Modelling and simulation of locomotives equipped with adhesion traction control systems;
• Comparison and analysis of simulation results for AC and DC locomotives.
A slight modification of the concept used in heavy locomotive studies described in (Spiryagin et al.,
2016) is required in order to provide an adequate solution for rail wear estimation processes. The multi-
body locomotive models already exist and confidence in the modelling and simulation approaches for
heavy haul trains, including different types of locomotives, is based on outcomes of previous research
projects funded by Australian industry partners. In this study, a simulation methodology is focused only
on two stages, a flowchart of which is shown in Fig. 3. The longitudinal train dynamics modelling ap-
proach is used here to perform simulations that allow obtaining lateral coupler forces for selected loco-
motives in a train consist that is traversing a hypothetical heavy haul track geometry. The lateral coupler
forces, which depend on the locomotive’s position in the train, are then approximated and applied in
multibody models at each locomotive’s coupling centres at a nominal coupler height above rail level, and
these do change continuously with respect to track geometry. The creep forces have been modelled with
the modified Fastsim algorithm (Spiryagin et al., 2013).
The wear model is firstly based on the USFD wear description to predict the wear rates and wear con-
dition at each wheel-rail contact. Meanwhile, the wear number Tγ in the BRR wear model is also present-
ed for discussion. Finally, the wear model based on Archard’s wear formulation (Archard, 1953) is
adopted. Wear depth calculations on rail profiles performed by the extended Archard’s method will be
compared for AC and DC locomotives under similar traffic loads. Rail profile wear calculations using

3
RCF and wear indices with or without material degradation and plasticity will be compared to judge the
influence of the high traction forces and adhesion control strategies. The effectiveness of the wear predic-
tion methodology will also be assessed by means of the additional comparison with standard wear calcu-
lation approaches used in Gensys multibody software.

4 LOCOMOTIVE MODELLING

A typical heavy haul locomotive with a Co-Co wheel arrangement (Spiryagin et al., 2014, Spiryagin et
al., 2013a) has been used in this study. The parameters of the main bodies of the locomotive are present-
ed in Table 1. To allow detailed wear simulations for two types of locomotives under traction, alocomo-
tive/track model is created using the GENSYS Multi-Body Simulation (MBS) software. The modelled lo-
comotive car-body is connected to two three-axle bogies with each axle being independently driven by its
own traction motor. Bogies are the conventional ‘rigid’ type with the wheelset and traction motor assem-
blies connected to a rigid frame, with the axles given some side-play so they could shift laterally in low
radii curves.
In wheel-rail contact modelling, the rails are modelled as massless bodies. Three springs normal to the
wheel-rail contact surface are used in the contact subroutine. This allows modelling of three different
contact surfaces in the wheel-rail contact interface simultaneously. The normal contact forces are also
solved by these three springs. The tangential creep forces are based on the application of the modified
FASTSIM algorithm as shown in Fig. 4. For traction control purposes, the Gensys model contains a
subroutine with a simplified traction system based on the bogie traction control strategy of one inverter
per bogie and the application of a PI controller. The slip threshold is set to 0.05 as in conventional
controllers. The diesel-generator, inverter and motor dynamics has been modelled as a low-pass filter.

Figure 3 Simulation methodology stages; Figure 4 Modified FASTSIM algorithm

5 SIMULATION ANALYSIS

Two simulation cases with new wheel–rail profiles have been performed in this study. To do this, each
locomotive model was run on a 240 m curved track with a constant speed of 20 km/h under the maximum
traction effort possible for such a locomotive. It is assumed that the throttle notch is set in the highest po-
sition in order to realise the maximum achievable traction for the required speed, that is, the traction ef-
fort is limited only by speed in this case; the slip threshold for the traction control system is set to 0.05.

4
Each locomotive is positioned at the front of the train, which means that the force on the front coupler is
zero, and the rear coupler force is 24 kN directed towards the inside of the curve as determined by means
of a longitudinal train dynamics simulation performed using an in-house package.
Fig. 5 shows the wear numbers
on all wheels of the two locomo-
tives. In Fig. 5, the upper two
graphs show those from the DC
locomotive while the lower two
graphs are from the AC one, and
the left graphs show those from
the first bogie, while the right
graphs are from the second bogie.
From the upper two graphs of Fig
6, the wear numbers from each
wheelset are different even before
entering the curve. This is be-
cause of the axle load distribution
occurs.
nu In this case, the wear
mbers on the two wheels of the Figure 5 Wear rates on all wheels
first wheelset on the leading bogie
are about 1500 before entering the curve, and they are about 1100 and 900 on the second and third
wheelsets respectively. However, on the trailing bogie, the wear numbers on the two wheels of the first,
second and third wheelsets are 1200, 950 and 550 respectively.
In the simulations, the curved track with the 240 m radius is designed as a right hand curve. This means
that the left wheels are running on the high rail and the right wheels on the low rail. From Fig. 5, on the
curve, the wear numbers are almost constant. For the DC locomotive, the maximum wear number of ap-
proximately 1900 occurs on the right wheel on the first wheelset of the trailing bogie, while for the AC
locomotive, the maximum value of about 3200 occurs on the right wheel on the second wheelset of the
trailing bogie. It can be seen that the maximum wear number caused by the DC locomotive is much
smaller than that caused by the AC locomotive, mainly due to the smaller traction torque in the DC loco-
motive. From the two left graphs of Fig. 5, it can be seen that, for both leading bogies of these two loco-
motives, the wear number on the left wheel is larger than that on the right wheel for the first wheelset.
However, for the second and third wheelsets, the wear numbers on the right wheels are larger than those
on the left wheels. In addition, from the two right graphs of Fig. 5, it can be seen that, for both trailing
bogies of these two locomotives and for these three wheelsets on each bogie, the wear numbers on the
right wheels are always larger than those on the left wheels. The main reason for the larger wear numbers
on the right wheels may be due to the low speed of 20 km/h.
Based on the wear number Tγ
shown in Fig. 5, Eq. (3) is used to
assess the rail wear condition, and
the rail wear rates are shown in
Fig. 6. The arrangement of graphs
in Fig. 6 is the same as those in
Fig. 5. From Fig. 6, for the DC
locomotive except for the left
wheels on the third wheelset in
the leading bogie and on the sec-
ond and third wheelsets in the
trailing bogie, all other wheels
cause the rail wear in severe wear
condition. For the AC locomo-
tive, almost all wheels cause se- Figure 6 Wear rates on all wheels
vere rail wear conditions.
6 CONCLUSIONS
Detailed DC and AC locomotive models have been developed by using the GENSYS software pack-
age and used to study the effect of locomotive high adhesive traction on rail wear damage. An AC loco-

5
 motive with maximum traction torque of 510,000 Nm and a DC one with 388,000 Nm were used for
these simulations. The simulation cases were set up to require the locomotive models to run on a 240 m
curved track with a constant speed of 20 km/h under the maximum traction effort possible for such loco-
motives. A modified FASTSIM algorithm was used to take into account a variable friction coefficient
and variable contact flexibility. The contact area was represented as a mesh divided into a certain number
of elements. These elements are required for the calculation of creep forces and stresses based on
FASTSIM, which can provide accurate calculations of tangent creep forces.
The simulations show that the maximum wear number on the wheels of the DC locomotive was ap-
proximately 1900 while, for the AC locomotive, the maximum value was about 3200. As the maximum
traction torques of a DC and an AC locomotive were 388,000 and 510,000 Nm, an increase of 31.4%, the
maximum wear numbers caused by the DC and AC locomotives were 1900 and 3200, with an increase of
68.4%. For simulations at the relatively low speed of 20 km/h, the overall wear numbers on the low rail
are always larger than those on the high rail regardless of the type of locomotive. In addition, almost all
wheels of the AC locomotive cause severe rail wear conditions.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support from Australasian Centre for Rail Innova-
tion (ACRI) project “Track Structures vs Train Dynamic and Load Effects”.
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