Wheel-rail Contact Point Calculation of Flexible Wheelset Base on Wheel-rail Contact Line Method

Elastic deformation of wheelset should be considered for wheelset dynamic research. In this article, a new wheel-rail contact point searching algorithm that can be used for flexible wheelset simulation was developed based on wheel-rail contact line method. For given position and deformation of wheelset, normal vectors of a point on each rolling circle and its project on rail were calculated to find out possible contact point, which formed wheel-rail contact line. The final contact point was determined by minimum vertical distance of contact line and rail section profile. Rigid-flexible coupling dynamic equations of single wheelset were established and dynamic simulation was executed. The impact of wheelset deformation on wheel-rail contact position and creepage were discussed. Comparison of rigid and flexible wheelset results show that the new method gets more accurate contact point position.