Railcar wheels and axles belong to the most critical components in railway vehicles. The
service conditions of railway vehicles have been more severe in recent years due to speed-up.
Therefore, a more precise evaluation of railcar wheel life and safety has been requested. Wheel/rail
contact fatigue and thermal cracks due to braking are two major mechanisms of the railcar wheel
failure. One of the main sources influencing on the contact zone failure is residual stress. The
residual stress in wheels formed during heat treatment in manufacturing changes in the process of
braking. Thus the fatigue life of railcar wheels should be estimated by considering both thermal
stress and rolling contact. Also, the effect of residual stress variation due to manufacturing process
and braking process should be included in simulating contact fatigue behavior. In this paper, an
evaluation procedure for the contact fatigue life of railcar wheels considering the effects of residual
stresses due to heat treatment, braking and repeated contact load is proposed. And the cyclic stressstrain
history for fatigue analysis is simulated by finite element analysis for the moving contact
load.
Assessment of Process, Parameters, Residual Stress Mitigation, Post Treatments and Finite Element Analysis Simulations of Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing Technique
