Worn Wheel/Rail Contact Simulation and Cultivated Shear Stresses

Railway system is today the most efficient way for transportation in many cases in several forms of application. Yet, wear phenomenon, profile evolution, fatigue, fracture, derailment are the major worries (financial and safety) in this system which force significant direct and indirect maintenance costs. To improve the cyclic maintenance procedures and the safety issues, it can be very satisfactory to be informed of the state of wheel/rail interaction with mileage. In present paper, an investigation of the behavior of the shear stresses by logged distance is approached, by implementing the field measurement procedure, in order to determine the real conduct of the most important cause of defects in wheel/rail contact, shear stress. The results coming from a simulation procedure indicate that the amounts of shear stresses are still in high-magnitudes when the wheel and rail are completely worn; even though in simulation based on the laboratory measurements of profile evolutions, the stresses become significantly reduced by logged distance.