New support roller profile design for railway wheel re-profiling process by under-floor lathes with a single cutting tool

The wheel re-profiling is an important part of railway wheelset maintenance. Researchers and railway operators have been very concerned about how to minimize the loss of time during wheel re-profiling without decreasing safety. Avoiding wheelset disassembly means considerable time savings, while reducing wheel damage during operation. Underfloor wheel lathes are the most appropriate tool to achieve this double objective, and therefore the most used nowadays. Multi-cut tool lathes have the disadvantage of being extremely expensive. On the other hand, with single tool lathes, re-profiling is not smooth or safe enough when current convex profile support rollers are used. It is well known by the companies that during reprofiling the wheel suffers impacts/damaged. In this article, a methodology to optimize the profile of the support rollers used in underfloor single tool lathes for railway wheel re-profiling is proposed. This novel profile design will minimize damage and increase the safety of such lathes, since it proposes a greater smoothness in the process. Simulations of re-profiling process have been carried out by the finite element method showing that the designed roller profile reduces drastically the impact/damage during the operation. The impact generated between the re-profiling wheel and the rollers is avoided. Profile-optimized support rollers have been used in a real underfloor wheel lathe, showing good results.

A Study of Improving Running Safety of a Railway Wagon with an Independently Rotating Wheel’s Flange

The main objective of this work is to study the possibilities of improving the running safety of a railway wagon with independently rotating wheels by changing their design symmetrically mounted on an axle. The article provides a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of using the independently rotating wheels in a bogie of railway wagons. Their increasing tendency of derailment is described. The influence of a perspective constructive scheme (PKS) of railway wagon wheels in comparison with a traditional constructive scheme (TKS) on running safety due to the climbing of a wheel flange onto a rail is studied. This work introduces a conceptual proposition of a technical solution to railway wheel design as well as containing the results of both analytical calculations as well as the results of multibody simulations. A PKS wheel design for a railway wheel is designed that allows independent rotation of its tread surface and of a guiding surface (i.e., of a flange) to each other, which both are arranged symmetrically on a wheelset axle. It brings features of the distribution of friction forces generating in a flange contact when the wheel with a TKS and with PKS move on a rail. It is possible to conclude with the help of the obtained results that the use of wheels with the PKS is advisable for the reduction of the running resistance as well as for increasing the running safety of railway wagons.

Increasing Service Life of a Railway Wheel with Surface Hardening Technology

The article presents surface hardening technology as applied to solid-rolled wheels of rolling stock. The obtained results of the theoretical study on the process of strengthening the metal of the wheel will make it possible to develop scientifically grounded technological and technical solutions to prevent formation and development of defects on the rolling surface, as well as to eliminate them during maintenance.The objective of this work is to identify the optimal method for surface hardening of a railway wheel with defects.At present, the issue of extending service life of elements and critical parts of rolling stock is becoming increasingly acute. Due to the limited economic feasibility and limited availability of existing production technologies, it becomes necessary to create a new material modified with nanoclusters and hardened with surfactants.Nanoclusters have high plasticity and hardness values. To determine the hardness value of nanomaterials, the Vickers hardness test method is used, in which hardness is determined by the size of the area of the indentation after removing the load from the pyramid shaped diamond.Superplasticity is observed in nanostructures. For nickel and nickel-aluminium alloy NiAl3, low-temperature superplasticity is observed in the temperature range 450–470°C, which is three times lower than their melting point.