Search Results (8)

Polygonal wear affects driving safety and drastically shortens a wheel’s life. This work establishes a wheel–rail coupled system’s rotor dynamics model and a wheel polygonal wear model, taking into account the wheelset’s flexibility, the effect of the wheelset rotation, and the initial wheel polygon. The energy approach is applied to study the stability of the self-excited vibration of a wheel–rail coupled system. The wheel polygonal wear generation and evolution mechanism is revealed, along with the impact of vehicle and rail characteristics on a wheel’s high-order polygon. The findings demonstrate that wheel polygonal wear must occur in order for the wheel–rail system to experience self-excited vibration, which is brought on by a feedback mechanism dominated by creepage velocity. Additionally, the Hopf bifurcation characteristic is displayed by the wheel–rail system’s self-excited vibration. Wheel polygonal wear is characterized by “fixed frequency and integer division”, and the wheelset flexibility largely determines the fixed frequency of high-order polygonal wear, which is mostly unaffected by the suspension characteristics of the vehicle. By decreasing the tire load, increasing the wheelset’s damping, and choosing a variable running speed, the progression of polygonal wear on wheels can be prevented. Future investigations on the suppression of wheel polygonal wear evolution can be guided by the results. Full article

Polygonal wheels are one of the most common defects in train wheels, causing a reduction in comfort levels for passengers and a higher degradation of vehicle and track components. With the aim of contributing to the safety and reliability of railway transport, this paper presents the development of an innovative methodology for classifying polygonal wheels based on a wayside system. To achieve that, a numerical train-track interaction model was adopted to simulate the passage of a freight train over a virtual wayside monitoring system composed of a set of accelerometers installed on the rails. Then, the acquired acceleration time series was transformed to a frequency domain using a Fast Fourier transform (FFT), and on this data, damage-sensitive features were extracted. The features based on Principal Component Analysis (PCA) showed great sensitivity to the harmonic order, while the ones based on Continuous Wavelet Transform (CWT) model showed great sensitivity to the defect amplitude. One step further, all features are merged using the Mahalanobis distance in order to obtain a damage index strongly correlated with the polygonal defect. Finally, a cluster analysis allowed the automatic classification of polygonal wheels, according to the harmonic order (harmonic-based) and defect amplitude (amplitude-based). The proposed methodology demonstrated high efficiency in identifying different types of polygonal wheels using a minimum layout of two sensors. Full article

Based on the dynamic characteristics of the axle box front cover of high-speed trains in the subharmonic resonance state, the nonlinear single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) model was proved to be reasonable, and reasons for the ineffectiveness of the common prevention methods for preventing bolt failure were analyzed firstly. Then, dynamic stress of the bolt was simulated by innovatively adopting the linear method based on frequency response analysis. The stress simulation method was verified to be practical under the subharmonic resonance state by analyzing and comparing the experimental and numerical results of the bolted front cover. It was proved that the linear method was accurate enough to simulate the dynamic stress of bolts, which is of great engineering significance. In addition to the transverse resonance stress of bolts caused by drastic vertical vibration of the front cover, the tensile resonance stress at the root of the first engaged thread was too large to be neglected on account of the first-order bending modes of bolts. Next, equivalent stress amplitude of the multiaxial stresses was obtained by means of the octahedral shear stress criterion. Finally, fatigue life of bolts was predicted in terms of S-N curve suitable for bolt fatigue life analysis. It argued that the bolts were prone to multiaxial fatigue failure when the front cover was in subharmonic resonance for more than 26.8 h, and the fatigue life of bolts could be greatly improved when the wheel polygonization was eliminated by shortening the wheel reprofiling interval. Full article

The gearbox is the key component of the traction drive system of a high-speed train. At the same time, the traction gearbox can easily experience a box housing failure due to bearing internal excitation from gear meshing and external excitation from motor torque fluctuation, the wheel polygon, and so on. In order to analyze the vibration and noise of the gearbox, a dynamic model of a high-speed train gear transmission system was established under the conditions of time-varying meshing stiffness and time-varying meshing error. A frequency spectrum analysis of the vibration at the key nodes of the model that changed with the speed was carried out. A test rig for a traction gearbox of a high-speed train was built, and a testing method for the vibration and noise of a high-speed train traction gearbox was put forward. The testing of and research on the traction gearbox under various working conditions were carried out, and the dynamic evaluation indexes of acceleration, vibration intensity, and air noise at different measuring points of the high-speed train traction gearbox were obtained. The study provided a test reference and a basis for the dynamic performance optimization design and fault diagnosis of a high-speed railway traction gearbox system. Full article

This work details research on the formation mechanism of wheel polygonalization in high-speed trains and its effect factors by numerical modeling in order to prevent the increasingly prevalent problem of wheel polygonal wear. The lateral self-excited vibration model of a wheel was developed using the LuGre friction model and self-excited vibration theory. The properties of wheel self-excited vibration and the crucial condition of Hopf bifurcation were investigated; the process of wheel polygonal wear was simulated and the results were validated using field tracking data. The results demonstrated that periodic self-excited vibration generated by Hopf bifurcation is a required condition for polygonal wheel attrition at a given speed. The wheel’s polygonal wear has the following characteristics: “Constant speed—Self-excited—Fixed frequency—Divisible.” The order of the polygon is determined by the ratio of the wheel lateral self-excited vibration frequency to its rotational frequency. Wheel polygonal wear was caused by the vertical dynamic force of the wheel rail. The findings of the study can serve as a theoretical foundation for the prediction and reduction of wheel polygonal wear. Full article

The polygonal wear of train wheels occurs commonly in rail transport and increases the wheel–rail interaction force dramatically and has a bad effect on the safety and comfort of the train. The mechanism of polygonal wear needs to be studied. The characteristics of test data measured from 47,000 sets of polygonal wheels of high-speed trains were analysed statistically. The analysis shows that, in the entire use life cycle of the wheels, the order (wavelength) and development speed of polygonal wear are different; they correspond to different wheel diameters because of wear and re-profiling. A prediction model, which considered the flexibility of the wheelset for the polygonal wear of the wheels of high-speed trains, was developed to explain this phenomenon. This theoretical model analyses the initiation, development, and characteristics of polygonal wear. The analysis includes the effect of the high-frequency flexible deformation of the wheelset, train operation speed, and wheel diameter variation. This study suggests that, if the wheel perimeter is nearly an integral multiple of the wavelength of severe periodic wear along the wheel circumference, the polygonal wear on the wheel can develop quickly. Furthermore, the wavelength of the periodic wear of the wheel relies on the operation speed of the train and wheelset resonant frequency. Therefore, the initiation and development of polygonal wear on wheels depends on the operation speed, wheel diameter, and the resonant frequencies of the wheelset. This conclusion can be applied to research concerning measures associated with the suppression of polygonal wear development. Full article

The increasing need for repairs of polygonized wheels on high-speed railways in China is becoming problematic. At high speeds, polygonized wheels cause abnormal vibrations at the wheel-rail interface that can be detected via axle-box accelerations. To investigate the quantitative relationship between axle-box acceleration and wheel polygonization in both the time and frequency domains and under high-speed conditions, a dynamics model was developed to simulate the vehicle-track coupling system and that considers both wheel and track flexibility. The calculated axle-box accelerations were analyzed by using the improved ensemble empirical mode decomposition and Wigner-Ville distribution time-frequency method. The numerical results show that the maximum axle-box accelerations and their frequencies are quantitatively related to the harmonic order and out-of-roundness amplitude of polygonized wheels. In addition, measuring the axle-box acceleration enables both the detection of wheel polygonization and the identification of the degree of damage. Full article

With increases in train speed and traffic density, problems due to wheel polygons and those caused by wheel–rail impacts will increase accordingly, which will affect train operational safety and passenger ride comfort. This paper investigates the effects of polygonal wheels on the dynamic performance of the track in a high-speed railway system. The wheel–rail interaction forces caused by wheel polygons are determined using a dynamic vehicle–track model, and the results are entered into a slab track finite element model. The influence of the harmonic order and out-of-roundness (OOR) amplitude of wheel polygons on the transient dynamic characteristics of the track(von Mises equivalent stress, displacement, and acceleration) is examined under high-speed conditions. The results indicate that the vibration acceleration and von Mises equivalent stress of the rail increase in proportion to the harmonic order and the OOR amplitude and velocity of a polygonized wheel. The vibration displacement of the rail first increases and then decreases with a change in the harmonic order, and reaches a maximum at the ninth order. The dynamic responses of the concrete slab layer, cement-asphalt layer, and support layer increase linearly with the harmonic order and amplitude of wheel polygons and decrease from top to bottom. Through a combination of numerical simulations and real-time monitoring of rail vibrations, this study provides guidance on potential sensor locations to identify polygonized wheels before they fail. Full article