ABSTRACT
The so called Extended Creep Force (ECF) Model was developed to accurately predict the wheel-rail creep forces. It takes into account the presence of normal stress and temperature de-pendent elasto-plastic Third Body Layers in-between the elastic wheel and rail. In this work, the tangential stress distribution in the contact calculated by the ECF model is compared to FASTSIM. In addition, the resulting subsurface temperatures are compared to the results from a test rig where a White Etching Layer was found on the rail. The prediction of the ECF model agrees significantly better than FASTSIM for the investigated cases. Thus, the ECF model is further validated and will lead to an improvement of the prediction quality regarding all aspects of the vehicle-track interaction.
