Application of an inclined, spinning ball-on-rotating disc apparatus to simulate railway wheel and rail contact problems.pdfVIP

Wear 374-375 (2017) 46–53 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Wear journal homepage: /locate/wear Application of an inclined, spinning ball-on-rotating disc apparatus to simulate railway wheel and rail contact problems Yinhu Xi a,b,n, Marcus Bj?rling b, Yijun Shi b, Junhong Mao a, Roland Larsson b a Theory of Lubrication and Bearing Institute, Key Laboratory of Education Ministry for Modern Design and Rotor-Bearing System, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, PR China b Department of Engineering Sciences and Mathematics, Division of Machine Elements, Lule? University of Technology, SE-971 87 Lule?, Sweden article info Article history: Received 15 August 2016 Received in revised form 22 December 2016 Accepted 24 December 2016 Available online 29 December 2016 Keywords: Spinning ball-on-rotating disc apparatus Wheel and rail contact Lateral creepage Spin creepage abstract Railway wheel-rail contacts involve various combinations of slip, rolling, and creepage. Traditionally, a twin-disc apparatus is used to simulate such problems. However, there are out of plane forces and motions involved in the actual situation. Therefore, the possibility of using a commercially-made, inclined-axis spinning ball-on-disc test rig was investigated to better simulate wheel and rail contact problems. By setting two angle parameters both the lateral and spin creepage can easily be applied to the contact. Traction measurements were conducted, and good agreement was found by comparing the present results with other available experimental data. The effects of the spin creepage on wear were studied in particular. An asymmetrical wear pattern was obtained from cases that applied a low longitudinal creepage and a spin creepage, corresponding to a rail running on a curved track. To the best of the authors knowledge, this work is the ?rst of its kind to be done using a laboratory-scale tribometer. 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The railway system is important f