ABSTRACT
The objective of this paper is to develop a new online wheel wear model taking the track flexibility into account. The model consists of two parts which interact with each other, (a) a locomotive/track coupled dynamics model considering the track flexibility, and (b) a model for the wear estimation. The wheel wear prediction model can be employed in online solution rather than in post-processing. The effect of the track flexibility on the wear estimation is investigated through comparing the results with those obtained from rigid track. Moreover, the influence of the wheel profile updating strategy on wheel wear is also investigated. The simulation results indicate that the track flexibility cannot be neglected for the wheel wear prediction. The wear predicted with the rigid track model is generally larger than that predicted with the flexible track model. The strategy of keeping wheel profiles constant during the dynamic simulation coincides with the online updating strategy in terms of the predicted wear.
