Thermomechanical and Vibrational Fatigue Life Assessment of Railway Wheels
type: CreativeWork
description: Rail wheel failures can lead to derailment of trains, cost lives and billions of dollars to the railway industry. Therefore, it is important to understand the failure behavior of critical components of the train, especially the ones which are exposed to extreme weather conditions. This understanding is much needed to develop effective risk management procedures. Most research studies in wheel fatigue life estimation did not account for structural, thermal and prestressed random vibrational loading as a coupled field. The present study develops an advanced numerical analysis methodology that incorporates real service conditions to calculate fatigue life. Firstly, a validation study was carried out before the fatigue life estimation. The prime objective of this validation study is to verify that the contact pressure observed in the Ansys FEA analysis is consistent with the Hertzian contact theory. The contact pressure estimated by Ansys simulation is 656 MPa and the mathematical calculation is 680 MPa showing therefore a variation of only 1.25%. Having verified the FEA model with a theoretical calculation, a full three-dimensional finite element analysis is developed to estimate fatigue life considering static, thermal and vibrational loadings. Mesh sensitivity study, selection of the appropriate contact formulation and detection method aided further to increase the accuracy of the FEA results. Secondly, having achieved a good validation between FEA and Hertzian theory, the major findings of this preliminary study such as second-order hexahedron with 10 mm element size and contact settings of normal Lagrange formulation and nodal normal from contact detection method to be adopted for the thermo-mechanical and pre-stressed vibration analyses. The fatigue life of the wheel was estimated using the stress life approach for thermo-mechanical loading and the Steinberg approach was utilized for the dynamic loading cases. This robust methodology was finalized using a typical …
abstract: Rail wheel failures can lead to derailment of trains, cost lives and billions of dollars to the railway industry. Therefore, it is important to understand the failure behavior of critical components of the train, especially the ones which are exposed to extreme weather conditions. This understanding is much needed to develop effective risk management procedures. Most research studies in wheel fatigue life estimation did not account for structural, thermal and prestressed random vibrational loading as a coupled field. The present study develops an advanced numerical analysis methodology that incorporates real service conditions to calculate fatigue life. Firstly, a validation study was carried out before the fatigue life estimation. The prime objective of this validation study is to verify that the contact pressure observed in the Ansys FEA analysis is consistent with the Hertzian contact theory. The contact pressure estimated by Ansys simulation is 656 MPa and the mathematical calculation is 680 MPa showing therefore a variation of only 1.25%. Having verified the FEA model with a theoretical calculation, a full three-dimensional finite element analysis is developed to estimate fatigue life considering static, thermal and vibrational loadings. Mesh sensitivity study, selection of the appropriate contact formulation and detection method aided further to increase the accuracy of the FEA results. Secondly, having achieved a good validation between FEA and Hertzian theory, the major findings of this preliminary study such as second-order hexahedron with 10 mm element size and contact settings of normal Lagrange formulation and nodal normal from contact detection method to be adopted for the thermo-mechanical and pre-stressed vibration analyses. The fatigue life of the wheel was estimated using the stress life approach for thermo-mechanical loading and the Steinberg approach was utilized for the dynamic loading cases. This robust methodology was finalized using a typical …
author: Sekar, Saravanakumar
language: en
date published: 2021-09
date modified: 2026-07-24T04:03:41Z
provider: University of Regina
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: https://hdl.handle.net/10294/14983

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.82465/4579