Calculation of wear on a corrugated rail using a three-dimensional contact model

This paper presents the results from simulations of railhead wear using a three-dimensional contact model. The wheel/rail contact is modelled as non-Hertzian and non-steady based on the Variational Method [J.J. Kalker, Three-Dimensional Elastic Bodies in Rolling Contact, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990] and the wear is assumed to be proportional to the frictional work. A wheel rolling over initial sinusoidal roughnesses is considered and when constant values of normal force and creepage are used, it is found that the maximum wear occurs at positions close to the crest of the initial wavelength and therefore roughness is not predicted to grow. A range of prescribed dynamic normal forces were then used to investigate the relationship between wear and dynamic force but again, no corrugation growth mechanism was revealed. Wear calculations using both Hertzian and non-Hertzian contact are compared and the significance of the non-Hertzian effects on the wear calculation is shown.