Influence of Primary Suspension Parameters on the Wear Behaviour of Heavy-Haul Railway Wheels Using Multibody Simulation

Understanding and predicting the wear mechanisms of wheels are of great interest to railways companies since wear is one of the principal drivers of operational costs. Quantifying the effects of wagon conditions on wear necessitates understanding railway dynamics concepts. Advanced computational tools, such as Multibody Simulation methodologies provide reliable alternatives for studying such complex systems. This work presents a methodology that employs multiple linear regression to investigate the relationship between the condition of vehicle components and wear volume, using longitudinal and lateral stiffness and clearance of the primary suspension as parameters. The data set was constructed using a Box-Behnken design to get efficient results with small computational costs. A multibody model was solved in SIMPACK® to calculate the wear profile in wheels using an actual representation of heavy-haul railway operations. The result suggests that variation in the longitudinal parameters was crucial to the increase of the worn area, i.e., reducing stiffness and increasing the gap can diminish the wear. Furthermore, increments in lateral parameters and longitudinal clearance can increase the fraction of wear that occurs in wheel tread.