Finite Element Analysis of Wheel-Rail Thermal-Contact Coupling When the Wheel´s Sliding

The heat damage of wheel tread and rail surface is one of the problems that need to be solved urgently. In this paper, finite element method was used to analyze the problem of three-dimensional wheel-rail thermal contact coupling. The contact patch´s size of the cone and the wear type locomotive wheel tread was researched. The thermal-contact coupling was analyzed for wheel-rail temperature and stress field under locked wheel sliding in certain speeds considering the interaction of temperature field and the stress field, the wheel-rail contact problem and the changes of the relevant material parameters with temperature. The results show that the area of contact patch with wear type tread is bigger and its shape is near circular, while the shape of contact patch with cone type tread is slender oval. The material properties, which change with the temperature, has a great impact on the temperature field and stress field. This cannot be ignored. The temperature field has a great impact on the stress field. The trend of temperature´s increase and stress´ increase is the same. Relative to the cone type tread, the heat damage of wheel and rail is smaller than wear type tread.