Comments on ‘the Kalker book of tables for non-Hertzian contact of wheel and rail’

The ‘simple double-elliptical contact’ (SDEC) approach by Piotrowski et al. [The Kalker book of tables for non-Hertzian contact of wheel and rail. Vehicle Syst Dyn. 2017;55:875–901] generates a-symmetrical contact patches in an elegant way. This allows to extend the table-based approach for the wheel–rail creep force calculation towards non-Hertzian contact geometry. This is an important line of research, because FASTSIM is intricate for non-Hertzian contacts, whereas CONTACT requires long calculation times.

Here, we comment on the further motivation that's provided for the approach. According to the authors, ‘the spin creepage generates longitudinal creep force in non-symmetric, non-elliptical contacts’, which is ‘completely lost’ when using elliptical regularisation. We demonstrate that this mainly depends on the choice of contact origin, and that the interaction is much reduced if different choices are made. This suggests that elliptical regularisation may be viable still, if the details are properly worked out. Furthermore, we introduce the spin center and the free-rolling position as means to extend the table-based approach towards more general non-Hertzian circumstances.     

爆炸式开关的瞬态温度场仿真计算

通过对爆炸式开关的热学分析,考虑开关内部传导散热和外表面的对流和辐射散热,建立了开关的瞬态热分析模型.考虑回路电阻、动静触头接触电阻的发热作用,利用热电耦合分析回路的温度分布;用三维有限元法对一额定电流为500A的爆炸式开关温度场进行了仿真分析,并进行了实验验证.仿真结果为爆炸式开关的设计和优化提供了理论依据.     

Design and optimisation of wheel–rail profiles for adhesion improvement

This paper describes a study for the optimisation of the wheel profile in the wheel–rail system to increase the overall level of adhesion available at the contact interface, in particular to investigate how the wheel and rail profile combination may be designed to ensure the improved delivery of tractive/braking forces even in poor contact conditions. The research focuses on the geometric combination of both wheel and rail profiles to establish how the contact interface may be optimised to increase the adhesion level, but also to investigate how the change in the property of the contact mechanics at the wheel–rail interface may also lead to changes in the vehicle dynamic behaviour.     

Precision analysis and dynamic stability in the numerical solution of the two-dimensional wheel/rail tangential contact problem

ABSTRACT

In this paper the two-dimensional contact problem is analysed through different mesh topologies and strategies for approaching equations, namely; the collocation method, Galerkin, and the polynomial approach. The two-dimensional asymptotic problem (linear theory) associated with very small creepage (or infinite friction coefficient) is taken as a reference in order to analyse the numerical methods, and its solution is tackled in three different ways, namely steady-state problem, dynamic stability problem, and non-steady state problem in the frequency domain. In addition, two elastic displacements derivatives calculation methods are explored: analytic and finite differences. The results of this work establish the calculation conditions that are necessary to guarantee dynamic stability and the absence of numerical singularities, as well as the parameters for using the method that allows for maximum precision at the minimum computational cost to be reached.     

Deterioration mechanisms in the wheel–rail interface with focus on wear prediction: a literature review

Wheel–rail interface management is imperative to railway operation and its maintenance represents a major share of the total maintenance cost. In general, the course of events usually called wear is a complicated process involving several modes of material deterioration and contact surface alteration. Thus material removal or relocation, plastic flow and phase transformation may take place at, just below, or in-between the contacting surfaces. A higher degree of predictability of deterioration mechanisms and a firm basis for optimisation of the wheel–rail system are anticipated to reveal a great potential for cost savings. Wear in the sense of material loss and related wheel–rail profile evolution represents one of several modes of damage. The purpose of this survey is to explore research on wear simulation, to some degree extended to neighbouring disciplines. It is believed that a cross-disciplinary approach involving, for instance, adhesive and abrasive wear, surface plasticity, and rolling contact fatigue opens new perspectives to improved damage prediction procedures.     

A third-order approximation method for three-dimensional wheel–rail contact

Multibody train analysis is used increasingly by railway operators whenever a reliable and time-efficient method to evaluate the contact between wheel and rail is needed; particularly, the wheel–rail contact is one of the most important aspects that affects a reliable and time-efficient vehicle dynamics computation. The focus of the approach proposed here is to carry out such tasks by means of online wheel–rail elastic contact detection. In order to improve efficiency and save time, a main analytical approach is used for the definition of wheel and rail surfaces as well as for contact detection, then a final numerical evaluation is used to locate contact. The final numerical procedure consists in finding the zeros of a nonlinear function in a single variable. The overall method is based on the approximation of the wheel surface, which does not influence the contact location significantly, as shown in the paper.     

Estimation of wheel–rail contact conditions and adhesion using the multiple model approach

This paper presents the development of a multiple model estimation approach for the identification of the adhesion limit to overcome the problem of the wheel slip/slide at the rail wheel-rail contact. The contact characteristics at the rail wheel-rail interface are both highly nonlinear and subject to changes due to exposure to external contaminations. The detection of adhesion and its changes is therefore scientifically challenging, but would provide a critical information in the control of trains to avoid undesirable wear of the wheels/track but also the safety compromise of rail operations. This study exploits the variations in the dynamic behaviour of the railway wheelset caused by the contact condition changes and applies a bank of Kalman filters designed at selected operation points for the adhesion estimation. A fuzzy logic system is then developed to identify the contact conditions by examining the residuals from the Kalman filters.     

列车振动下接触网拉出值补偿算法

依据鹰厦线接触网检测车现有拉出值和列车振动检测数据及计算方法,提出了一种基于ＢＰ网络的新算法实现拉出值补偿计算,为供电段有效利用检测车动态检测数据指导静态检修提供了依据。实验结果表明;与人工测量值比较,误差〈３０ｍｍ的可达８０％。     

电动车高压连接器的内接触结构

本文介绍了电动车高压连接器最近设计的一些内接触结构。一类是双螺旋曲线结构、线簧结构、多孔耐磨结构、片簧接触结构、弹性插孔结构的线接触,另一类是多触点接触环、具有阵列凸点的镂空连接管、新型的圆柱形冠簧直接实现点接触,二者都以降低接触电阻,提高载流能力为目的。弹性高压插头则可以与插座直接形成线性接触,不需要冠簧等中介体。     

大型海洋平台顶升塔架的稳定性分析

随着液压顶升技术的发展,通过顶升塔架完成大型海洋平台的整体合拢的技术日渐成熟和广泛。目前,国内外关于顶升塔架的稳定性相关问题研究较少,而塔架的稳定性问题是平台能否安全完成上下模块总装合拢的关键问题。本文针对如何合理的布置顶升塔架,提高塔架在海洋平台顶升过程中的稳定性问题,以有限元分析为基础,并引入接触算法定量分析塔架在外载荷作用下的稳定性问题。此外,本文定量分析装配误差、地基存在不均匀的弹性、塑性变形等建造误差对塔架稳定性的影响,包括单塔架、单侧塔架、对角塔架升沉引起的塔架稳定性损失,及单塔架、单侧塔架及对角塔架倾斜引起的塔架稳定性损失,揭示出了相关规律,为工程施工做参考。