LAUSR

ABSTRACT Wheel flat is one kind of railway train wheelset defects. It has great influence on wheel/rail dynamics and damages. In most of the presented studies, wheel/rail impact velocity or rolling radius variation of the wheel because of flat spot was taken into account to study the wheel/rail impact dynamics. In this paper, a three-dimensional wheel flat model considering the length, width and depth of the flat spot is established. Including the wheel rotation and wheel/rail contact geometry, a high-speed vehicle–rail coupling system dynamics model is developed to investigate the effect of the wheel flat on the wheel/rail dynamics. With time integration method of the models, the impact dynamics of the wheel/rail system with three types of flat width and five kinds of flat length are obtained. The results show that the width, the length of the wheel flat and the width/length ratio have a great influence on the wheel/rail impact dynamics. The wheel/rail impact dynamics of the flat with large width is more severe than with small width as the flat length is fixed. When a flat spot occurs, the permissible length of the wheel defect, needless to action, is 25 mm in maximum. The speed safety domain with three kinds of flat width/length ratio of a vehicle is obtained according to the wheel/rail vertical force limitation.