An elastoplastic numerical model of rolling contact applied to analyze the fatigue of railroad wheels

Author(s)

Francisco de Carvalho Santos

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Faculdade de Engenharia Mecânica
• Defense date: 2008-02-25

Examining board members

Auteliano Antunes dos Santos Júnior; Renato Pavanello; Itamar Ferreira; Roberto Spinola Barbosa; Lucio Tunes dos Santos

• Advisor: Auteliano Antunes dos Santos Júnior

Abstract

This work proposes a wheel-rail contact model based on finite element method to estimate the fatigue life to shelling, until the beginning of the crack of a railroad wheel class C of a heavyhull Brazilian railroad from Serra dos Carajás. The main contribution of this work is the elastoplastic approach with the inclusion of the residual stress generated by the heat treatment of the wheel manufacture process. Submodeling techniques were used to determinate the residual stresses from manufacture process and the contact stresses. Aiming the comparison, the wheelrail contact stresses was calculated using an analytic model, based on Hertz theory, and a numeric model (FEM) without residual stress from the manufactured process. The fatigue life was calculated using two criterions based on critical planes and hydrostatic stresses. The high cycle fatigue criterion from Dang Van was adapted to be used in contact problems. The other one was the Fatemi¿Socie criterion, based on shear strains. The number of cycles until the arising of the fatigue crack was correct using a statistical normal distribution of the lateral position of the contact point. This work shows that the residual stress generated by the manufacture process, which prevents the crack propagation, reduces the fatigue life until the arising of the crack (AU)