J. Inst. Eng. India Ser.

C (OctoberDecember 2014) 95(4):319325

DOI 10.1007/s40032-014-0145-x

ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTION

Contact Stress Analysis in WheelRail by Hertzian Method

and Finite Element Method
J. P. Srivastava P. K. Sarkar V. Ranjan

Received: 2 March 2014 / Accepted: 30 July 2014 / Published online: 2 September 2014
The Institution of Engineers (India) 2014

Abstract Safety and economy of railway traffic is enormously influenced by the contact stress variation caused by
wheel rail contact profile changes. A change in designed
surface topology may result from wear that brings in a wide
change in contact geometry and stresses. To study the
influence of interacting wheel and rail profile topology of
standard rail UIC60, the standard wheel profile as per
Indian Railway standards are considered in this paper. Rail
profile radii, wheel profile radii and wheel profile taper are
chosen for six different values. The analytical formulation
is based on Timoshenkos approach and Finite Element
Method (FEM) based simulation of the problems is
undertaken. With these tools, distribution of contact zones,
contact stress and contact pressure for different configuration of the wheel and rail profiles are obtained. The mesh
density in contact region is found to have a direct influence
on the accuracy of the solution [1]. To standardize the
analysis of the contact region, mesh with an element size of
1 mm for all the configurations are chosen. Using stress
response obtained through FEM analysis and multiaxial
fatigue crack initiation model, the effects of vertical loading on fatigue crack initiation life are investigated. This
may allow a direct design application for railways in
particular.
Keywords Hertz contact  FEM  Wheelrail 
Contact dimensions  Contact profile  Contact pressure

J. P. Srivastava (&)  P. K. Sarkar  V. Ranjan

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian School of Mines,
Dhanbad, Jharkhand 826004, India
e-mail: jaysrvstv@gmail.com

Introduction
The wheelrail contact is the foundation of all research
related to vehicle-track interaction. This tiny interface
governs the dynamic performance of rail vehicles through
the loads it transmits and, like any high stress concentration
zone, it is subjected to serious damage phenomena. Thus, a
clear understanding of the rolling contact between wheel
and rail is a key to realistic vehicle dynamic simulation and
damage analyses. The majority of research of contact
interacting in the pair of wheelrail has been carried out
with usage of the approach of Hertz [2]. Earlier many
authors have designed analytical approach based on Hertz
theory to analyze the contact between the interacting wheel
rail profiles. Many researchers have [3] developed an
approach to solve Hertz equation for contact dimension,
contact pressure and penetration. The researchers have
attempted to simplify numerically the solution of the
elliptic integral by approaching the ratio of elliptic axis.
Tanaka established a new method to calculate elliptical
Hertz contact pressure in which the calculation of elliptic
integral is not necessary [4]. Subsequently, an approximate
of Hertzian contact model has been obtained by replacing
the elliptical integral with polynomial approximation [5].
The researchers have introduced a new method to simplify
the elliptical integral to become simpler and the result
shows a good correlation with the theoretical results.
Beside using analyticalnumerical approximation, Hertzian
contact problem solution in wheel rail contact has been
done using FEM [6] in the year 2000, the contact pressure
calculation has been compared using three methods i.e.,
Hertz theory, FEM and program contact from Kalker.
Then, the influence of interacting wheel and rail profiles on
the distribution of contact zones and stresses has been
simulated [7] using FEM and quasi-Hertz method as well.

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The scientists have [8] attempted to solve Hertzian contact

for small radius of curvature using analytical as well as
finite element modeling to observe the variation of maximum contact stress in rail with respect to the change in rail
radius of curvature. With the passage of time, contacting
profiles of wheel and rail undergoes wear. It involves both
plastic deformation and abrasion of surfaces. This paper
makes use of a full approach to the subject, starting with an
analytical approach of the wheel and rail contact based on
Hertz theory of contact. Then finite element analysis is
carried out with a refinement of the mesh in the contact
zone to study the effect of variation of wheel rail profile
parameters on the contact dimension, contact stress and
contact pressure. Stress analysis is performed and fatigue
damage in railroad is evaluated numerically using multiaxial fatigue crack initiation model.

Mathematical Model for WheelRail Contact

Theoretical basis for steady state wheelrail rolling contact
conditions are contained within assumptions of Hertzian
Contact Theory, named after German scientist Heinrich
Hertz, who developed it in 1882. Theory of elastic deformation is used to calculate contact geometry and contact
stresses. According to the researchers [9], if two elastic
nonconforming bodies are pressed together, then the contact area assumes elliptical shape with a semi major axis a
and a semi minor axis b. The distribution of the contact
pressure in this elliptical area as shown in Fig. 1 represents
a semi-ellipsoid, expressed as:
s


x2 y2
P Po
1 2 2
1
a
b

J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. C (OctoberDecember 2014) 95(4):319325

The calculation of the contact areas requires knowledge

of some geometric constants used in the above formulation.
With respect to wheelrail configuration, the following
curvature combinations are related as:


1 1
1
1
1

4
AB
2 R11 R12 R22 R21
"
 

1
1
1 2
1
1 2



BA
2 R11 R12
R22 R21
5



1=2
1
1
1
1
2


cos 2w
R11 R12
R22 R21
where A and B are positive constants. R11, R12, R21 and R22
are defined as the principal relative radii of curvature,
represented pictorially in Fig. 2, where R11 is the rolling
radius of curvature of the wheel, R12 is the radius of the
wheel profile, which goes to infinity for a conical wheel,
R21 is the radius of the runway which is infinity in this case
and R22 is the radius of curvature of the rail in the plane of
cross section.
a
The ellipticity
parameter
b is related to geometrical
A
parameter B by means of the coefficients m and n.
A
From the notation, cos h B
AB the values of m and n for
various values of h are calculated using the tables [11]. By
means of the best curve fitting method shown in Figs. 3 and
4, the intermediate values are calculated using regression
given by:
n 3E  05h2 0:0045h 0:334
m 62:19h

0:914

Fig. 1 Pressure distribution across elliptic area

123

The principal stresses at the centre of the surface of

contact are calculated as [12]:
b
ab
a
r2 2lP0  1  2lP0
ab
r1 2lP0  1  2lP0

The semi axes of the elliptic boundary of the surface of

contact a, b are given by [10]:


3p PK1 K2 1=3
am
2
4 A B


3p PK1 K2 1=3
bn
3
4 A B

r3 P0

8
9
10

Fig. 2 Wheelrail configuration showing different principal relative

radii of curvature

Hertz coefficient, n

J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. C (OctoberDecember 2014) 95(4):319325

initial contact may occur on each part of the profile. Here,

contact in the region of radii 300 is considered. With the
passage of time, abrasion of surfaces as well as plastic
deformation may lead to change in the profile radii. To study
their effect, six different profile radii are considered, i.e.,
principal radius of curvature is varied from 280 to 330 mm.
Wheel profile as per Indian Railway standard is considered [13]. The transverse wheel profile consists of a
sequence of circular arcs with three different radii, i.e.,
330, 100, 13 mm and a linear section with a taper of 1 in 20
as shown in Fig. 6. For the current analysis, the variation in
the dimension of the circular arc of 330 mm for six different values i.e., from 300 to 360 mm and the wheel
profile taper varied for five different values ranging from 1
in 10 to 1 in 30 are considered.

1
0.75
0.5
0.25
20

40

60

80

100

Hertz coefficient, m

Fig. 3 Graph between Hertz coefficient,n against h

3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
20

40

60

80

321

FEA Procedure

100

Geometrical modeling was carried out in a CAD-environment. The geometry was then imported to FE code ANSYS
as shown in Fig. 7. Contact problem being nonlinear in
nature, demands significant processing time.

Fig. 4 Graph between Hertz coefficient,m against h

Fig. 6 Wheel profile as per Indian Railway standards

Fig. 5 UIC 60 rail

Expression for von Mises stress:

s
r1  r2 2 r2  r3 2 r3  r1 2
rvonMises
2

11

Contacting Profiles
The UIC60 is the most common rail used in India. Its transverse head profile consists of a sequence of circular arcs with
three different radii of 300, 80, and 13 mm as shown in Fig. 5.
The sections of the profile on the 300, 80, and 13 mm radii are
referred to as the rail crown, rail shoulder and gauge corner,
respectively. Due to the transverse movement of the wheel,

Fig. 7 Geometric model of the wheelrail assembly

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J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. C (OctoberDecember 2014) 95(4):319325

elements and 1,49,468 nodes. The mesh density in contact

region is found to have a direct influence on the accuracy of
the solution [1]. Study has been made for different element
size (0.5, 1, 1.5 mm) for the contact region. Results
obtained from 1 mm element size found good matching
results from those of Tehrani et al. [14]. To standardize the
analysis of the contact region mesh with an element size of
1 mm for all the configurations are chosen. Under the total
vertical load of 80 ton per total of eight wheels in a wagon,
resulting to a load of 10 ton is applied in proportion on the
section of wheel. Wheels are assumed to operate on a flat
and straight path, therefore lateral loads to the system are
ignored. Rotational effects of the wheel are also neglected.
The rail and wheel are assumed to be linear elastic with the
same material data modulus of elasticity, E = 210 GPa
and poissons ratio, 0 = 0.3. The coefficient of friction
between wheel and rail is considered to be 0.3. After
application of these material properties in the FE model,
boundary condition is applied. The base of the rail is
assumed as fixed support to prevent rigid body motion of
the whole system. Load of 10 ton, i.e., 98,100 N is equally
distributed on the nodes at the bearing location of the wheel
where the axle is mounted.

Fig. 8 Finite element model of the wheelrail assembly

Taking into account the fact that it is necessary to carry out

calculation for different profiles of the interacting surfaces,
only a sector of the whole wheel geometry is considered for
the analysis to reduce the computational time (Fig. 8)
The wheel and rail geometry is meshed with SOLID 186
element and the contact region is meshed with contact and
target element CONTA174 and TARGE170. Two
potential contact surfaces are referred to as either the
target surface or the contact surface. CONTA174 is
used to represent contact and sliding between 3-D target
surfaces and a deformable surface, defined by this element.
The element is applicable to 3-D structural and coupled
field contact analysis. The element has the same geometric
characteristics as the solid or shell element face with which
it is connected. Contact occurs when the element surface
penetrates one of the target segment elements on a specified target surface. The FE model has a total of 1,05,985

Fatigue Analysis
This section outlines the fatigue life calculation based on
the results obtained from Finite Element analysis. The life
of a fatigue crack is normally divided into three phases
covering crack initiation and growth. These are: Stage I
shear stress-driven initiation at the surface, Stage II
transient crack growth behavior, and Stage IIIsubsequent
tensile and shear driven crack growth. Crack starts at

Table 1 Mechanical properties of the wheel and rail steel

E(GPa)

20f

r0f

210

0.3

-0.089

-0.559

10.3

936

0.2

Table 2 Effect of variation of wheel profile radii on contact dimension, contact pressure and von Mises stress, based on analytical and FEM
solutions
R12

Analytical

FEM

Analytical

FEM

Analytical

FEM

a, mm

b, mm

a, mm

b, mm

Po, MPa

Po, MPa

r, MPa

r, MPa

300
310

11.7
11.7

3.15
3.18

11.64
11.84

3.36
3.21

1,268.8
1,260.7

1,230.17
1,253.14

358.399
354.995

364.84
347.25

320

11.7

3.21

11.71

3.21

1,252.9

1,235.62

351.737

353.86

330

11.6

3.23

11.42

3.32

1,245.5

1,226.80

348.725

350.59

340

11.6

3.25

11.62

3.14

1,238.5

1,237.81

345.858

351.03

350

11.6

3.28

12.16

3.32

1,231.9

1,210.54

343.068

351.73

123

J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. C (OctoberDecember 2014) 95(4):319325

323

Table 3 Effect of variation of rail profile radii on contact dimension, contact pressure and von Mises stress, based on analytical and FEM
solutions
Analytical

FEM

Analytical

FEM

Analytical

FEM

R22

a, mm

b, mm

a, mm

b, mm

Po, MPa

Po, MPa

r, MPa

r, MPa

280

11.7

3.17

11.74

3.21

1,268.8

1,223.43

356.372

334.31

290

11.7

3.20

11.81

3.29

1,260.7

1,238.78

352.437

342.56

300
310

11.6
11.6

3.23
3.26

11.79
11.47

3.25
3.31

1,252.9
1,245.5

1,254.68
1,264.21

348.725
345.209

349.13
357.38

320

11.6

3.29

11.34

3.13

1,238.5

1,265.73

341.890

363.38

330

11.6

3.31

11.47

3.07

1,231.9

1,268.16

338.863

345.95

Table 4 Effect of variation of wheel profile taper on contact dimension, contact pressure and von Mises stress, based on analytical and FEM
solutions
Analytical

FEM

Analytical

FEM

Analytical

FEM

WPT

a, mm

b, mm

a, mm

b, mm

Po, MPa

Po, MPa

r, MPa

r, MPa

1 in 10

11.6

3.24

11.42

3.29

1,248.3

1,261.06

348.694

345.65

1 in 15

11.6

3.23

11.49

3.21

1,246.2

1,264.92

348.675

341.19

1 in 20

11.6

3.23

11.52

3.47

1,245.5

1,234.12

348.725

341.75

1 in 25

11.7

3.23

11.49

2.99

1,245.2

1,281.33

348.510

348.99

1 in 30

11.7

3.23

12.01

3.14

1,244.9

1,266.69

348.197

346.3

rolling contact surfaces as a result of accumulation of shear

deformation from repeated rollingsliding contact loading
[15]. Initiation may be considered to have occurred when
stage I is complete. Jiang and Sehitoglu proposed a simple
damage parameter for determining fatigue life [16].


max D 2
FP hr i
J DsD
12
2
where hi denotes the MacCauley bracket,h xi
0:5jxj x; rmax is the maximum stress normal to the
crack plane, Ds is the shear stress range normal to the crack
plane and D is the shear strain range on the crack plane.
The constant J, which is material and load-dependent,
should be obtained from tension/torsion tests. The fatigue
life to initiation is computed on the crack plane as:
FPmax



D2
J DsD
hrmax i
2
max
r0f 2
2Nf 2b r0f 20f 2Nf bc

13

where rmax is the maximum normal stress in the plane, r0f

and 20f represent the fatigue strength coefficient and fatigue
ductility coefficient respectively, E is the Youngs modulus, b and c are the fatigue strength exponent and the
fatigue ductility exponent, and Nf is the number of cycles
to failure. Mechanical properties required for fatigue calculation are given in Table 1.

Fig. 9 A representative stress ellipsoid for R12 = 330 mm, giving

r1 = -855.5 MPa, r2 = -1,137.3 MPa and r3 = -1,245.5 MPa

Results and Discussion

Using the above Eqs. (111) results are obtained using
analytical method. FE model for all the configurations are
run and processed successfully to obtain the results. Effect
of profile parameter i.e., wheel profile radii, rail profile
radii and wheel profile taper for different values on the
contact parameter i.e., semi major axis (a), semi minor
axis (b), contact pressure (Po) and von Mises stress (r)
are presented in Tables 2, 3 and 4 respectively. As per the
analytical solution, for a given configuration a representative stress ellipsoid is presented in Fig. 9.
The von Mises stress distribution obtained from the
solution of three dimensional FE model is shown in
Fig. 10.

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Fig. 10 von Mises stress distribution

J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. C (OctoberDecember 2014) 95(4):319325

Fig. 13 Shear stress distribution

Load, kN

200
150
100
50
0
0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

Fatigue damage parameter

Fig. 14 Vertical load against fatigue damage parameter

Fig. 11 Contact area distribution

Load, kN

200
150
100
50
0
0.0E+00

1.0E+07

2.0E+07

Fatigue Life, cycles

Fig. 15 Vertical load against fatigue life

Fig. 12 Contact pressure distribution in contact region

According to basic Coulomb friction model, two surfaces can carry shear stresses up to a certain magnitude.
Once the shear stress is exceeded beyond that limit, the two

123

surfaces will slide relative to each other. This state is

known as sliding. Contact area distribution in terms of
sliding, near contact and far open as obtained by ANSYS is
shown in Fig. 11.
For a given configuration of R12 = 330 mm, contact
pressure distribution is plotted on the top of the rail surface.
Maximum contact pressure, 1,226.80 MPa can be seen in
the center of the ellipse as shown in Fig. 12. A comparison
of Hertzian calculation and FE-simulation is presented in
Tables 2, 3 and 4. Results obtained from FEM are very
close to the analytical solution (Figs. 13, 14)
In order to examine the effects of load amplitude on
fatigue characteristics, five different loading conditions of

J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. C (OctoberDecember 2014) 95(4):319325

5 ton (49.05 kN), 7.5 ton (73.575 kN), 10 ton (98.1 kN),
12.5 ton (122.625 kN), and 15 ton (147.15 kN) are studied. Using finite element analysis, stress state at every point
is obtained. The point of maximum von Mises stress is
considered as the critical location for fatigue crack initiation. Fatigue parameter and number of cycles to failure for
different loading conditions are calculated using the
equations given in this paper. As expected, the fatigue
damage parameter increases as the vertical load increases
and reduction in the number of cycles to failure is observed
as shown in Fig. 15. The reduction in the fatigue life is
more significant for heavy loading.

Conclusion
Rail wheel contact problem resulting in varying contact
profile geometries is investigated to estimate the influence
of contact geometry and stress distribution. Results from
the analytical model indicate stress decrement with
increase in profile radii. Increase in wheel profile radii also
increases the width of the contact area ellipse while its
length decreases. This is likely to induce higher sliding
friction. Influence of taper increase, represented by W,
causes increase in contact length with reduced width. Thus,
higher taper of rail wheel is likely to facilitate reduction in
contact area. Neither the half-space assumption nor a linear
material limit the FE model as in the case of Hertz analytical solution. Besides these advantages over the classical
solutions, there is an inconsistent trend in FEM solutions
for contact analysis of complicated shapes as in the case of
wheels and rail interaction. Results obtained from FE
analysis is used to calculate fatigue damage parameter and
number of cycles to failure. An increasing contact loading
results in more damage in the wheelrail interface. For load
more than 100 KN, a steeper fall in fatigue life is observed.
The variation in contacting profile geometry due to wear
does not have a significant effect on fatigue life as the
stress responses are nearly the same for different configurations. However, the present study forms the basis for
development of new designs of profile of a surface of
wheels and rails, fatigue resistance design and inspection
planning of railroad.

325
Acknowledgments This paper is a revised and expanded version of
an article entitled, Contact Stress Analysis in Wheel-Rail by
Hertzian Method and Finite Element Method presented in
National Conference on Recent Advancements in Mechanical
Engineering held at North East Regional Institute of Science and
Technology, Arunachal Pradesh, India during November 89, 2013.

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