ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: In this work, the normal and tangential problems of wheel-rail conformal rolling contact are studied by means of Finite Element (FE) models. Due to conformity, some of the assumptions employed in classical contact theories, such as flatness of the contact area and the half-space assumption, lose their validity. FE models do not suffer these limitations, and therefore constitute an alternative to study conformal contacts, although the high computational costs associated hinder their application in railway vehicle dynamic simulations, where typically thousands of contact problems need to be solved.
