Analysis of vertical dynamic wheel/rail interaction caused by polygonal

wheels on high-speed trains

Xiaoyuan Liu
a,b,n
, Wanming Zhai
a
a
State Key Laboratory of Traction Power, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 610031, China
b
Dipartimento di Meccanica, Politecnico di Milano, Via La Masa 1, Milano 20156, Italy
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 20 November 2013
Accepted 24 November 2013
Available online 1 December 2013
Keywords:
Dynamic wheel/rail interaction
Polygonal wheel
High-speed train
Vehicle-track coupled dynamics
a b s t r a c t
In order to investigate vertical dynamic wheel/rail interaction resulting from a polygonal wheel at high-
speeds, a vertical vehicle-track coupled dynamics model is adopted. The measured results from German
ICE polygonal wheels are utilized as multi-harmonic excitations. Two types of out-of-round wheels, the
periodic and the non-periodic, are simulated and compared. The dynamic wheel/rail interaction induced
by different harmonics is analyzed in both time and frequency domains. Results demonstrate that the
polygonal wheel will result in considerable uctuation of wheel/rail contact force. Derivative of wheel
radial deviations can effectively reect dynamic wheel/rail contact force at train speeds above 300 km/h.
Dynamic wheel/rail load becomes more sensitive to high order harmonics with increased speeds.
Inuence of the out-of-round wheel on vehicle system is mainly related to the wheelset vibration. Short-
wavelength components of the polygonal wheel stimulate high-frequency vibrations of rails and
sleepers.
& 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Polygonalization of wheel tread is a common imperfection
form among railway vehicle wheels. The wavelength of this defect
ranges from 14 cm to the whole circumference, while its ampli-
tude is usually less than 1 mm [1]. It is almost impossible to detect
this defect by visual inspection. However, the polygonal wheel
poses a potential threat to operational safety, especially for high-
speed trains. In 1998, an ICE high-speed train derailed and crashed
to a bridge near Eschede, resulting in devastating consequences.
The investigation results revealed that strong wheel/rail contact
loads due to a polygonal rubber-spring wheel broke the wheel rim,
leading to derailment. In order to ensure the operating safety of
high-speed trains and reduce the damage to both vehicles and
tracks, it is essential to execute timely inspection, re-proling and
removal of wheels.
Many valuable researches were conducted in this eld. Wheel
polygonalization resulted from wheelset unbalance and rotational
inertia appeared in [2,3]. To simulate development of polygonal
wheels, the coupling of a vehicle-track dynamics model and a wheel
wear model by iteration in different time scales was accomplished in
Refs. [47]. Measurements of wheel tread irregularity and dynamic
tests of wheel tread defects were carried out in [8,9]. Refs. [10,11]
introduce wheelset elastic resonance and wheel/rail load problems
due to polygonalized wheels.
In previous studies on the vehicle/track dynamic interaction
due to wheel irregularity, mono-harmonic is widely adopted as the
excitation form among many papers. Nevertheless, the actual out-
of-round wheel has very complicated geometry. And the dynamic
wheel/rail contact force does not have a direct connection with
harmonic orders or vehicle speeds. In contrast, the excitation form
of multi-harmonic is more effective for analyzing wheel/rail
interaction induced by the realistic polygonal wheel.
This paper is inclined to present the inunce of wheel out-of-
roundness on dynamic behaviours of vehicle-track system by
considering the characteristics in actual polygonal wheels of
high-speed trains.
2. Simulation model
2.1. Vehicle-track coupled dynamics model
On basis of the framework of vehicle-track coupled dynamics [12],
a vehicle-track vertical model is built to analyze the dynamic
wheel/rail interaction due to polygonal wheels at high-speed
operations. In the model, the vehicle system is regarded as a
multi-body dynamic system. The vertical and pitch motion of
carbody and two bogie frames and the vertical motion of four
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
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Wear
0043-1648/$ - see front matter & 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wear.2013.11.048
n
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: xiaoyuan.liu@polimi.it (X. Liu).
Wear 314 (2014) 282290
wheelsets are taken into consideration. The track system is modeled
as an Euler beam exibly supported by a discrete-elastic foundation
of three layers with sleepers and ballasts included. The ballast bed is
separated into blocks corresponding to the sleeper spacing. The
coupling of the vehicle system and the track system is achieved by
the vertical wheel/rail contact force. The simplied Hertz non-linear
elastic contact model is utilized to calculate the wheel/rail contact
force.
A simple fast time integration algorithm constructed by Zhai
[13] is employed to solve the high dimensional differential
equations of the vehicle-track system.
2.2. Mathematical model of polygonal wheel
For the purpose of analyzing the vertical dynamic wheel/rail
interaction caused by the out-of-round wheel, one solution is to
convert circumferential irregularity into harmonic excitation of
the wheel/rail interface.
The wheel radial deviation Z
w0
() can be expressed as Fourier
series with N harmonics:
Z
w0

N
i 1
A
i
sini
i
1
where is a polar coordinate, i is order of the polygon, A
i
is
corresponding amplitude, and
i
is a phase.
Figs. 1 and 2 display polar coordinate graphs and harmonic
distributions of two types of polygonal wheels from [1]. Polar
coordinate diagrams are tted with the method mentioned above,
based on the detected data from German ICE1 wheels. Wheel I is a
periodic polygonal wheel whose dominant harmonics are the 1st and
3rd orders. Fixation misalignment in manufacture and assembly may
result in the common 1st order, while clamping in a three-jaw chuck
during proling may lead to the 3rd order. Wheel II is a non-periodic
(stochastic) polygonal wheel without denite dominant orders, but it
has more short-wavelength components. Its formation might be
related to heat treatment [14].
The radial deviation Z
w0
() can be converted into the time history:
Z
w0
t
N
i 1
A
i
sin iV=Rt
i
2
where V represents the vehicle speed; R represents the mean
radius.
According to Eq. (2), the rst derivative of Z
w0
(t) with respect to
t can be obtained:
dZ
w0
t
dt
V=R
N
i 1
iA
i
cos iV=Rt
i
3
Without considering track irregularities, the vertical compres-
sion amount between wheel and rail can be written as
Zt Z
w
tZ
w0
tZ
r
x
w
; t 4
where Z
w
(t) is the wheel vertical displacement, Z
r
(x
w
, t) is the
displacement of the rail beneath the wheel.
The vertical wheel/rail contact force can be determined by use
of the simplied Hertzain non-linear contact theory:
Pt
Zt=G
3=2
ZtZ0
0 Zto0
(
5
where G is the wheel/rail contact constant related to the wheel
radius and tread type.
3. Results and analyses
Vehicle dynamics parameters of a Chinese high-speed EMU are
used in the simulation. Ballasted track parameters from a
passenger-dedicated line are adopted correspondingly. The main
dynamics parameters are listed in Table 1. Irregularity of the
Fig. 1. Wheel I (peak-to-peak value 0.44 mm): (a) polar diagram and (b) harmonic
distribution.
Fig. 2. Wheel II (peak-to-peak value 0.35 mm): (a) polar diagram and (b) harmonic
distribution.
X. Liu, W. Zhai / Wear 314 (2014) 282290 283
polygonal wheel is imposed on the steering wheelset of the
leading bogie. Based on the polygonal geometry illustrated above,
dynamic responses are analyzed under different operation speeds.
3.1. Dynamic wheel/rail contact force
Fig. 3 demonstrates responses of wheel/rail contact force for
polygonal wheels at train speed of 350 km/h. It is noticed from
Fig. 3 that the wheel/rail force shows considerable periodic
uctuations with radial deviations. Peaks of the contact force
occur at the raising slopes of radius, while troughs happen at
falling slopes. Actually, the damping effect of the vehicle-track
coupled system takes an important role in dynamic wheel/rail
contact force. Due to the high stiffness of wheel/rail contact, the
rapid variations of wheel irregularities induce signicant oscilla-
tions of the wheel/rail compression and result in strong dynamic
contact loads.
Fig. 4 displays frequency spectra of the wheel radial deviation,
dynamic wheel/rail displacement, and dynamic contact force for
wheel II at 150 km/h. The dynamic wheel/rail interaction can be
classied into three categories according to excitation frequencies.
For the 1st order, the wheel bounces with its own irregularity,
leading to very low contact load. It corresponds to frequencies
below 20 Hz. As to the 2nd to 4th orders, both wheel and rail show
evident vibration, resulting in signicant wheel/rail loads. This
phenomenon is caused by wheel/track coupled vibration ranging
from 20 Hz to approximate 120 Hz. With regard to higher order
harmonics, these components cause elastic deformation of the
rail; however, wheel displacement amplitude keeps low. They also
generate evident contact loads. It is mainly due to high-frequency
wheel/rail Hertz contact vibration above 120 Hz. In addition, the
dynamic rail displacement reveals intensity of the wheel/rail
contact load in frequency domain. As the vehicle speed increases,
the wheel/track coupled vibration and wheel/rail high-frequency
Hertz contact vibration become more dominating. Especially the
majority of the harmonics induces the wheel/rail Hertz contact
vibration when the vehicle speed exceeds 300 km/h. Conse-
quently, the wheel/rail contact force at high speed is closely
associated with the radial geometry of the wheel.
Table 1
Main dynamics parameters used in simulation.
System Parameter Value
Vehicle Axle load (kg) 11200
Unspring mass (kg) 2100
Wheel rolling radius (m) 0.43
Track Rail mass (kg/m) 60
Sleeper spacing (m) 0.6
Rail pad stiffness (N/m) 6.010
7
Support stiffness of ballast bed (N/m) 2.210
8
Fig. 3. Time history of wheel/rail contact force and wheel radial deviation at 350 km/h: (a) Wheel I and (b) Wheel II.
X. Liu, W. Zhai / Wear 314 (2014) 282290 284
Since the wheel/rail contact force is sensitive to the variation of
wheel radial deviation, derivative of radial deviation with respect
to time (could also be length or angle) is a proper indicator of the
dynamic load. It means the derivative of radial deviation is
regarded as the velocity corresponding to the damping of the
vehicle-track system. Fig. 5 displays time history of the wheel/rail
force and the rst derivative of radial deviations at 350 km/h. In
Fig. 5, the derivative is almost consistent with the wheel/rail
contact force. The peaks are located at maxima of the derivative,
and the trough values stay at the minima.
Fig. 6 shows the frequency spectra of the wheel/rail load and
derivative of radial deviation. The contact force and derivative of
deviation also display similar patterns among most orders.
Figs. 7 and 8 exhibit additional dynamic load and wheel load
reduction ratio versus speed, respectively. The wheel load reduc-
tion ratio, dened as (P
static
P
min
)/P
static
, is a safety index to
evaluate the severity of the wheel unloading, which may induce
a jumping derailment. Generally, as the train speed grows,
uctuation of wheel/rail contact force shows a noticeable
increased trend. Nevertheless, it does not mean that the dynamic
force due to polygonal wheels monotonously intensies with
higher speeds. A local maximum can be found at 150 km/h for
Wheel I, probably because the dominant 3rd order induces P2
resonance around 45 Hz [6,15,16]. At this frequency, wheel and rail
almost vibrate in phase.
In frequency domain, Fig. 9 indicates each harmonic's contribu-
tion to the dynamic wheel/rail force at different speeds. As for
Wheel I, the dominant 3rd order harmonic can lead to signicant
dynamic load responses in a wide range of speeds over 150 km/h.
It is necessary to make the 3rd order under control in the process
of proling and re-proling. For Wheel II, the dynamic loads
become more sensitive to both higher and lower order harmonics,
as the speed increases. Higher orders intensify Hertz contact with
incremental frequencies; lower orders of high amplitude gradually
induce wheel/track coupled vibration with the increased speeds.
There is a convex zone for 8th10th orders over 300 km/h,
however, the current criteria (peak-to-peak value) underestimate
hazards of high order harmonics, whose amplitudes are always
low. It also appears that the conditions of 300400 km/h display
similar patterning due to the wheel/rail Hertz contact. Therefore,
Fig. 4. Spectra of wheel radial deviation, dynamic wheel/rail displacement and contact load for Wheel II at 150 km/h.
X. Liu, W. Zhai / Wear 314 (2014) 282290 285
the derivatives of wheel radial deviation can demonstrate dynamic
wheel/rail contact loads at high speeds, particularly for the short-
wavelength harmonics.
3.2. Acceleration response of vehicle system
Wheelset acceleration resulting from the out-of-round wheel
reects characteristic of the dynamic wheel/rail contact load, as
illustrated in Fig. 10. A probable cause is that dynamic component
of the primary suspension force is substantially weaker than that
of the wheel/rail contact force at high frequencies.
Fig. 11 displays the trend of wheelset acceleration with train
speeds, exhibiting consistent tendency compared with Fig. 7. The
high frequency oscillation may shorten the lifespan of axlebox
bearings, hydraulic dampers, or even cause fatigue of bogie frame.
Figs. 12 and 13 respectively show accelerations of the carbody
and the leading bogie frame at various train speeds. The acceleration
responses of both carbody and frame stay at low levels at all speeds.
Owing to the low natural frequencies and damping ratios of primary
and secondary suspensions, high frequency oscillations from the
wheel can be effectively attenuated. However, the structural vibra-
tion of the carbody may be amplied by polygonal wheels, which is
already illustrated in several Refs. [5,10,11].
3.3. Acceleration response of track system
Fig. 14 exhibits time history and frequency spectra of rail
acceleration at 350 km/h. In contrast with wheel acceleration,
the rail acceleration contains distinct high frequency components.
Response of Wheel II is far more intense than Wheel I, because
short-wavelength harmonics of Wheel II excite the high-order
eigenmodes of rail.
Fig. 15 demonstrates the maxima of the rail acceleration with
speeds. There is a denite discrepancy between the two wheels: as
train speed exceeds 250 km/h, the rail acceleration for Wheel II
shows a noticeable increased tendency compared with Wheel I.
The stochastic polygonal wheel induces more violent rail vibration
than the periodic polygonal wheel, even though their peak-to-
peak values are approximate.
Fig. 16 illustrates the contributions of the harmonics to the rail
acceleration. Rail vibration resulting from the high-order harmonics
show a drastic enlargement with raising speeds, however, vibration
from the low-order harmonics remains relatively low. When the train
speed exceeds 300 km/h, the excitation frequencies from high-order
harmonics come close to the eigenfrequency of rail bouncing over rail
pads [17], leading to apparent high-frequency responses. Therefore,
the subtle high-order harmonics play a critical role in rail vibration.
Fig. 17 exhibits the acceleration of sleeper and ballast bed at
different speeds. In contrast to Wheel I, the sleeper acceleration
Fig. 5. Time history of wheel/rail contact force and derivative of wheel radial deviation at 350 km/h: (a) Wheel I and (b) Wheel II.
X. Liu, W. Zhai / Wear 314 (2014) 282290 286
for Wheel II also shows a steeper gradient over 250 km/h, mainly
due to high-frequency rail oscillation. As the speed exceeds
300 km/h, the acceleration of ballast bed remains comparably
stable.
Fig. 6. Frequency spectra of wheel/rail contact force and derivative of radial
deviation at 350 km/h: (a) Wheel I and (b) Wheel II.
Fig. 7. Additional dynamic wheel/rail load due to polygonal wheels versus train
speed.
Fig. 8. Wheel load reduction ratio due to polygonal wheels versus train speed.
Fig. 9. Dynamic wheel/rail contact force caused by each harmonic at various train
speeds: (a) Wheel I and (b) Wheel II.
X. Liu, W. Zhai / Wear 314 (2014) 282290 287
4. Conclusions
A high-frequency vehicle and track coupled dynamics model is
employed to simulate dynamic wheel/rail interaction due to
polygonal wheels at high speeds. The multi-harmonic excitation
is adopted to reect the irregularities of actual polygonal wheels.
Based on this model, the vehicle-track interactions induced by the
periodic and stochastic polygonal wheels are compared in time
and frequency domains.
Fig. 10. Response of wheelset acceleration at 350 km/h: (a) Wheel I and (b) Wheel II.
Fig. 11. Maxima of wheelset acceleration versus train speeds.
Fig. 12. Peak values of leading bogie frame acceleration.
Fig. 13. Peak values of carbody acceleration.
Fig. 14. The response of rail acceleration: (a) Wheel I and (b) Wheel II.
X. Liu, W. Zhai / Wear 314 (2014) 282290 288
Simulation results demonstrate that the polygonal wheel will
result in substantial uctuations of vertical wheel/rail contact
force. The dominant 3rd order harmonic leads to signicant
dynamic load in a wide range of speeds, so the initial 3rd order
due to proling or re-proling should be kept under reasonable
control. For non-periodic polygonal wheels, the dynamic wheel/
rail contact force is more sensitive to both higher and lower order
harmonics at higher speeds. The wheel/rail dynamic interaction
can be categorized into three forms according to the excitation
frequencies. As the wheel/rail Hertz contact vibration is dominant
at high speeds, derivative of wheel radial deviations is an efcient
indicator of dynamic wheel/rail contact force. It is recommended
that derivatives of wheel radial deviations should be incorporated
in the criteria for re-proling and removal.
For the vehicle system, polygonal wheels mainly affect the
wheelset vibration. The vehicle suspensions can effectively attenu-
ate the resultant vibration. The short-wavelength harmonics of the
polygonal wheel considerably intensify high frequency oscillations
of rails and sleepers, especially at higher speeds.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (NSFC) under grants U1234209 and by
National Key Basic Research Program of China (973 Program)
under grant 2013CB036206.
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