Analysis of wheel-rail contact forces resulting from vertical track irregularity

Abstract

The research that is described in this thesis is based upon the formulation and analysis of mathematical models of railway vehicle and track systems. The objective of the research carried out is to compile, and then apply, these models to gain a greater understanding of the nature of the wheel-rail contact forces that are generated due to irregularity of the wheel and track geometry. The response of the vehicle and track system is considered under a number of different types of vehicle wheel and railway track defects. The nature of the different defects require that different types of analysis are used. The modelling of the system response due to random track irregularity lends itself to the use of spectral techniques due to the fact that the dynamic input to the system may be described by spectral functions. Frequency domain analysis is used to calculate the response due random irregularity.