Industrial implementation of novel procedures for the prediction of railway wheel surface deterioration

Adequate performance of the wheel–rail interface is essential for satisfactory operation of a railway system in terms of quality of service and maintenance effort. Pertinent requirements on efficiency tend to push the operation conditions towards higher loads and increased speed while the wheel–rail contact remains a small and highly stressed area. Dominating modes of deterioration due to high normal and tangential stresses are wear and rolling contact fatigue. Both kinds lead to surface material loss, in the former case as a slow rate profile geometry change with consequences to the dynamic performance and in the latter case different crack patterns and eventually spalling or shelling requiring reprofiling.