Integrated Computational Materials, Process and Product Engineering – IC-MPPE 2022

Accurate prediction of the wear evolution and damage of rails and wheels is essential for effective maintenance processes to be achieved. Knowing with more certainty when grinding/turning or replacement is needed can help in planning the processes better which in turn will help reduce costs and keep availability of track and vehicles at an optimum.
There are very sophisticated multi-body dynamics models and numerical models available for understanding vehicle performance and wheel/rail interface conditions. In order to develop tools for damage prediction, however, these must be combined with effective tribological wear, damage and friction models. This an area where many improvements can be made. Many models are semi-empirical, which is fine, but this means that they only work for those cases where the input data is available. There is a great need for physically based models to overcome this.
This presentation will give an overview of some recent work on wheel/rail tribology to help understand prevalent wear and friction mechanisms and some tools developed to improve their prediction aimed at improving the situation.