A New Method for Modelling and Simulation of the Dynamic Behaviour of the Wheel-rail contact

This paper presents a new method for modelling and simulation of the dynamic behaviour of the wheel-rail contact. The
proposed dynamic wheel-rail contact model comprises wheel-rail contact geometry, normal contact problem, tangential contact problem
and wheelset dynamic behaviour on the track. This two-degree of freedom model takes into account the lateral displacement of the
wheelset and the yaw angle. Single wheel tread rail contact is considered for all simulations and Kalker0s linear theory and heuristic
non-linear creep models are employed. The second order di®erential equations are reduced to ¯rst order and the forward velocity of
the wheelset is increased until the wheelset critical velocity is reached. This approach does not require solving mathematical equations
in order to estimate the critical velocity of the dynamic wheel-rail contact model. The mathematical model is implemented in Matlab
using numerical di®erentiation method. The simulated results compare well with the estimated results based on classical theory related
to the dynamic behaviour of rail-wheel contact so the model is validated.