Early Detection of Wheel Flats Using Wagon Body

EARLY DETECTION OF WHEEL FLATS USING WAGON BODY
ACCELERATION MEASUREMENTS
Yan Sun*, Colin Cole**, and Chris Bosomworth***
*PhD, **PhD & Prof., NPER-3, RPEQ, *** Engineer,
Centre for Railway Engineering, CQ University
North Rockhampton, QLD 4702, Australia
SUMMARY
A wagon train health system, based on the acceleration measurements on a wagon car body, has been
designed to monitor the wagon safety performance indexes derailment ratio, car body or bogie hunting,
speed, maximum dynamic wheel load and wheel unloading due to long-wavelength track geometry
irregularities. In this paper, the possibility to monitor the wheel impacts due to short-wavelength defects such
as wheel flats using such a system is theoretically presented through the simulations using a comprehensive
non-linear vehicle-track interaction dynamics model. The method is restricted to traditional three piece bogie
rollingstock. A coal wagon is modeled and a section of track with the geometry irregularity class 5 is selected
for the simulations. The simulation results show that the original acceleration measurements on the wagon
car body include very high frequency components contributed by the friction elements in the wagon
components, which hide the useful messages coming from the wheel impact. A filter has been designed to
extract these useful messages. The processed data shows that the wheel impact patterns, even those
caused by the smaller wheel flats, can be detected. As expected, wheel impact detection using this
approach is limited at lower speeds.
1. INTRODUCTION
Wheel impacts due to wheel flats are particularly
pernicious since they input high loads to the track
and wheel with each revolution they make, leading
to very high frequency dynamic loads. These loads
can cause serious damage to vehicle and track
components. A wheel flat can be thought of as a
short flat spot or loss of roundness on the wheel
tread surface, formed on a braked wheelset by
abrasion as it slides along the rail.
The vast majority of wheel flats increase in severity
over time until they reach the alarm limit. At that
point much more material must be removed from
the wheel to salvage it than if it had been attended
to earlier. This shortens the overall life of the
wheel and places a wheel that has been subjected
to extreme stress back into operation. It was
pointed out [1] that martensite was found beneath
all flats and cracks observed in most cases. So,
the risk for future spalling should be considered for
all wheelsets with flats. A damaged wheelset
should be taken out of service as quickly as
possible. When re-profiling the wheels, all
martensite and an additional layer of several
millimetres should be machined off. In addition,
wheelsets adjacent to those with severe flats have
a high probability of developing defects. It is not
uncommon for an adjacent wheelset to show
minor impacts just before the condemned one
beside it is serviced.
The early detection of wheel flats has become of
increased importance to freight and mass transit
operators because of economic pressures to raise
productivity, usually through longer or more
frequent trains with higher speed and higher axle

loads. As a result, the increased likelihood of
serious damage to rails, track structure and rolling
stock is of major concern to the operator for
maintenance and safety reasons. In addition, the
increased use of concrete sleepers has resulted in
track structures having a much lower compliance,
or higher stiffness. This, in turn, exacerbates the
effects of impact loading on rails, sleepers and
fasteners.
Various approaches to prevention, detection and
management have been developed. Control
technology has been applied to upgrade the
control performance of brake systems on railway
vehicles to avoid the generation of wheel flats
during braking [2, 3]. On other hand, there have
been several recent advancements in wayside
detector technology [4-7] that promise to provide
the improvement in the early detection of wheel
flats. One of the most significant is the Wheel
Impact Load Detector (WILD) [7] that came out of
the AAR Vehicle Track Systems Research
Program. In such a system, accelerometers and
strain gauges were installed in a selected track
section. When a train passes through this section,
the system triggers and then measures and
records the passing wheel loads. It was evident
from the results that accelerometers were a
superior sensor because they provided better
frequency response and linearity than strain
gauges.
In our research on the early detection of wheel
flats has considered a wagon train health advisory
system [8-10] and theoretical simulations. The
system monitors wagon performance through the
Conference On Railway Engineering
Wellington, Sept 12-15, 2010
Yan Sun, Colin Cole and Chris Bosomworth

wagon car body acceleration measurements to

detect derailment ratio, car body or bogie hunting
speed, maximum dynamic wheel load and wheel
unloading due to long-wavelength track geometry
irregularities. Currently, there have been several
mathematical models [11-14] used to investigate
the wheel impacts due to wheel flats.
EARLY DETECTION OF WHEEL FLATS USING

WAGON BODY ACCELERATION MEASUREMENTS
wagons. Wagon modelling includes one wagon car

body, two bolsters, four sideframes, four
wheelsets, and eight friction wedges. Fig. 1 (a),
(b), (c), and (d) show wagon component modelling
respectively.
Zc
Vehicle Car Body
Side-bearing Position
The wheel impact simulation can provide the costeffective way to do the research. The purposes in
our research lie in two aspects through the
simulations on: (1). the possibility in detecting
wheel impacts due to wheel flats using the wagon
car body acceleration measurements. (2). the
possibility in developing a condemning criteria for
wheel flats. This paper only deals with the first
aspect. The single wheel flat is assumed to occur
on the one wheel. The simulations in this paper
have been carried out using a comprehensive
three-dimensional wagon-track system dynamics
model. The paper will present this model and
wheel flat modelling.
Centre Bowl
Connection Points
x3
3. VEHICLE-TRACK MODELLING
In this section, the vehicle-track modelling is briefly
illustrated and described. Our previous work on
wagon-track interaction dynamics has given a full
description of the differential equations [15-16].
The modelling is deployed as in-house FORTRAN
code, simply called CRE-3DVTSD model.
x2
x5
x1
kc
Xc
Hc
x4
VS
Lcr
kc
Lcf
Lcp
(a) Car Body

Yb
Zb
x6i+6
Bolster
Hb1
Centre Bowl
Connection Points
2. NOTATION
DoF is the degree of freedom,
C is the Hertz contact coefficient,
W and W are the vertical displacements of rail
and wheel at the contact point,
x is the function representing the wheel or rail
defects,
a is the depth of wheel flat,
L is the rounded length of wheel flat,
is the start position of the wheel flat,
L is the fresh flat length corresponding to the
length of a chord of a circle,
R is the wheel radius,
M and M , C and C , and K and K are the
mass, damping and stiffness matrices of wagon
and track modelling,
n is the number of modes of the rail beam,
d is the displacement vector of the wagon
subsystem,
d is the displacement vector displacement of the
track subsystem that includes the modal and
physical displacements,
F is the wheel-rail interface force vector
consisting of the wheel-rail normal contact forces,
tangent creep forces and creep moments,
F is the combined wheel-rail interface force
vector.
Yc
x6
Hbw
Hb2
x6i+3
x6i+2 x6i+5
Side-bearing Position
x6i+1
Xb
x6i+4
2B ss
2Lss
(b) Bolster
ZSf
Sideframe
x12i+6j+6
x 12i+6j+3
x 12i+6j+2
YSf
x12i+6j+5
(i=1, 2; j = 1, 2)
Hsfa
x12i+6j+1
Hsfb
x12i+6j+4
XSf
(c) Sideframe
Yw
Zw
Wheelset
x 12i+6j+30
x12i+6j+27
x12i+6j+29
x12i+6j+26
Xw
x 12i+6j+25
x 12i+6j+28
(i=1, 2; j = 1, 2)
3.1 Wagon Modelling

The model is for a three-piece bogie rigid body
wagon with constant side bearers and friction
damping as generally seen for freight or coal
(d) Wheelset
Figure 1 : Wagon Modelling


All components are modelled as rigid bodies with

six degrees of freedom (DoF) (lateral, vertical and
longitudinal displacements, and roll, pitch and yaw
rotations). The wagon car body, as shown in Fig. 1
(a), rests on two bolsters through two centre bowls
and four constant-contact side bearings on the
bolster, and is longitudinally connected with two
couplers, which are represented as springs. Each
centre bowl is modelled with four point contacts
through spring and friction elements along the
longitudinal, lateral and vertical directions. The
constant-contact side bearing is simplified as
spring elements in the vertical direction. The
bolster as shown in Fig. 1 (b) is supported by the
suspension. The sideframe as shown in Fig. 1 (c)
is an intermediate structure that provides seating
for the suspension and connects to the wheelsets
Fig. 1 (d) through steel-steel contacts that are
represented as springs with large stiffness. Two
kinds of bogie rotations are also taken into account
yaw and lozenge rotations. Nonlinear connection
characteristics such as vertical lift-off and lateral
and longitudinal impacts between sideframe and
wheelset, sideframe and bolster, and bolster and
wagon car body are fully considered.
In Fig. 1, represents the DoF, and its subscript
indicates the number of DoF. A total of 66 DoF are
used to describe the movements of all wagon
components. For the wagon car body, the centre
bowl connection is considered as a four point liftoff, modelled as a steel-steel contact between car
body and bolster along X, Y and Z directions. Side
bearings are also included as a lift-off connection
as shown in Fig. 1 (a) and (b). The constantdamping friction wedges are taken into account in
the modelling but are not shown in Fig. 1(b) and
(c) [17-18].
Fcx
(Fcy)
k 0z
F0xy
u (
v)
(a)
w 0
(b)
Total Suspension Force at Wedge #1 (kN)
Unloading
60
Loading
40
-10
Rail Vehicle
Rail
(Elasticity of Pad+Sleeper+Ballast) Sleeper Spacing
(a) Longitudinal View

Z Rr
wRr
Right Rail
Le ft Rail
Rrz
v Rr
Rry
YRr
Z Rl
wRl
Rlx
Rlz
v Rl
Rly
YRl
(b) Lateral View

Figure 3 : Track Modelling
70
30
-15
F0z
90
50
The track subsystem is considered as the

discretely supported track with one layer as shown
in Fig. 3 (a) and (b).
Pad+Sle epe r+Ballast
k 0x (k 0y)
80
3.2 Track Modelling
Rrx
Fcz
F0xy
u0 (
v 0)
The forces along the longitudinal X and lateral Y

directions at the centre bowls connections
between car body and bolsters, are calculated
according to Fig. 2 (a) in which and
represent the longitudinal and lateral clearances at
centre bowl; is the friction force; and
are the longitudinal and lateral stiffness
coefficients of centre bowl contacts. Forces along
the vertical Z direction are calculated according to
Fig. 2 (b) in which is the static compression at
the vertical contact of the centre bowl; ! is the
preload; ! is the vertical stiffness coefficient. For
the total suspension force coming from friction
wedges and secondary suspension springs
connections between bolster and sideframes are
determined based on Fig. 2 (c) for the wagon in
the case study. The suspension spring force and
the vertical forces between sideframes and
wheelset are calculated according to the similar
relationship expressed in Fig. 2 (b).
-5
0
5
Relative Displacement (mm)
10
15
(c)
The track components are assembled as for

conventional ballasted track structure used in most
of the heavy haul railway networks (e.g. sleeper
spacing, pad and fastener stiffness, ballast
modulus and depth, and subgrade modulus). The
track is modelled as two rail Timoshenko beams
supported by discretely distributed spring-damper
elements, which represent the combined elasticity
of rail pads and fasteners, ballast and subgrade.
There are five DoFs at any point on the rail beam
lateral and vertical displacements ("# and "#
($ % &, (), and three rotations ("# , "# and "#! )
about longitudinal, lateral and vertical directions.
Equivalent stiffness and damping coefficients have
been used to take into account the stiffness and
damping of rail pad, sleeper and ballast. In this
Figure 2 : Force-Displacement Relationship



track model, the effect of sleeper and ballast

masses has not been considered.
For simplicity, the dynamic equilibrium equations
of the rail beam have been expanded using a
Fourier series in the longitudinal (X) direction by
assigning an equal number of terms (n , also
known as the number of modes of the rail beam)
for both the linear displacements and the angular
rotations.
3.3 Wheel-Rail Interface Modelling
For the wheel-rail interface, the normal force due

to wheel-rail rolling contact is determined using
Hertz static contact theory. The creep forces and
the creep moments are defined using Kalkers
linear creep theory. The comprehensive model
includes the vertical and lateral velocities of the rail
in the definition of the creepages in the lateral and
spin directions. As Kalkers linear theory best
defines the creep forces for very small creepages
only, Johnson-Vermeulens approach is used to
further modify the creep forces. In this paper, the
normal contact force F) is determined using
Hertz contact theory and can be expressed in
following equation:
Ld
FWTn
C [w w w ( x )]3 / 2 if w R w w ( x ) > 0
= H R
0
if w R w w ( x ) < 0
(1)
3.4 Wheel Flat Modelling
Wheel flats are generally caused by the wheels of
a wagon becoming locked during a brake
application, leading to sliding along the track. The
friction created by this grinds a flat spot on the
wheel. The effect of such a defect is to cause
abnormally high impact forces in both the rail and
the wheel. Depending on the size of the flat, the
wagon type and the speed, the stresses due to
impact may be sufficient to cause significant
damage leading to failure. Severe wheel flats are a
safety hazard, and even smaller ones contribute to
track deterioration that increases the maintenance
costs. With an attempt to restrict the damage due
to wheel flats, most railways place limits on the
allowable length of the flat that might stay in
service. For example, in Sweden wheels with flats
larger than 40 mm are taken out of service [11]
whilst in Australia wheel flats up to 50 mm are
sometimes allowed on the track. For a rounded flat
shown in Fig. 4, the defect can be approximately
expressed as a harmonic function shown in
following equation:
2( x x 0 )
1
(x ) = a 1 cos
2
Ld
(x 0 x x 0 + L d )
(2)
Figure 4 : Rounded Flat Wheel

The depth of wheel flat is given by:
a = R R2
L20
4
(3)
Fresh flats caused by sliding quickly become

rounded. The relation between the fresh length
and rounded flat length is estimated as:
L d = (1.5 ~ 2.0)L 0
(4)
In the simulations, L % 2.0L is selected.

3.5 Solution Technique
For the wagon with 66 Dof, the equations of
dynamic equilibrium can be written using multibody mechanics methods. For the track modelling,
the lateral and vertical bending and shear
deformations of the rail are described using
Timoshenko beam theory, in addition to
considering the torque of the rail beam. After
performing a Fourier series expansion in the
longitudinal direction, the equations of dynamic
equilibrium have been obtained for the rails. The
equations of dynamic equilibrium for the wagon
and track modelling can be expressed in following
equation:
(5)
A modified Newmark- method developed by
Zhai [19] is used to solve above the equation.
4. CASE STUDY
4.1 Wagon and Track System
A wagon and track system was selected for
illustrating the wheel impact responses due to
wheel flats using the above comprehensive model.
The detailed list of parameters for this system is
provided in Appendix - I. The comprehensive
model containing the system of one wagon and a
section of track results in 1266 equations of motion
as described:
Number of Dof used for one wagon = 66;
Number of modes for the rail beams = 120;
Total Dof = (66) + (12025) = 1266 (Two rails
with five DoFs each at any point).


4.2 Simulation Scheme

On one wheel, a single wheel flat is assumed and
modelled using Eqs. (3) and (4). The simulations
were conducted as follows:

could be seen that the main frequencies of wheel

impact were about 76 Hz for P2 force and 125 Hz
for P1 force.
Based on Eq. (3) and (4), the relationship

between the wheel flat length and width at the
wheel diameter of 850mm was plotted in Fig.
5. The simulations were firstly carried out using
the wheel flat sizes shown in Fig. 5 with the
right wheel on the first wheelset only having a
flat and the wagon with speed of 80 km/h.
Figure 7 : Wheel load and Its FFT

The vertical acceleration of wagon car body at the
front was shown in the upper plot of Fig. 8. The
corresponding FFT magnitude was also shown in
the lower plot.
Figure 5 : Wheel Flat Sizes
The simulations were then carried out with the

two wheels on the first wheelset having the
same flat, with a wagon speed of 80 km/h. The
wagon speeds of 60 and 70 km/h were also
used along with two wheel flat sizes to
examine the effect of various speed-flat
combinations.
The above simulations were all conducted with an

irregularity spectrum Class 5 track condition. The
track top profile irregularities of the track section
are shown in Fig. 6.
Figure 8 : Car Body Acceleration and Its FFT
Figure 6 : Track top profile irregularities

5. DATA PROCESSING
The simulation results the wheel-rail impact
factor (impact force divided by the static wheel
load) and the accelerations at the wagon car body
front and rear locations above the two bogies were
presented to illustrate the data processing.
5.1 Raw Data
The wheel-rail impact factors on the right and left
wheels of the first wheelset, with the right wheel
having a flat with the length of 50mm, and a
wagon speed of 80 km/h, was shown in the below
upper and middle plots in Fig. 7. The
corresponding FFT magnitude for the impact factor
on the right wheel was shown in the bottom plot. It
It could be seen that the main frequencies of car

body acceleration include two values. One was
very low and about 2 Hz, which came from the
vertical natural frequency of bogie suspension
system. The other was very high and about 370
Hz, which might be contributed from the vertical
friction among the wagon components such as car
body and centre bowls on bolsters. From the
upper plot in Fig. 8, we could not obtain any useful
information.
5.2 Filter Design
In order to draw useful information of wheel impact
from the car body accelerations, data filtering of
the car body accelerations should be conducted to
eliminate the very low (e.g. 2 Hz) and very high
(e.g. 370 Hz) frequency components. A filter was
designed as shown below Fig. 9. The band pass
frequency is between 10 Hz and 200 Hz.



accelerations is presented for both the front (upper

plot) and rear (second plot) of the wagon. The
reasoning is that any practical wagon health
device will be mounted at just one location, in most
cases at one end of the wagon. In these plots, the
acceleration readings from the back of the wagon
combined with analysis of wheel flats on the
leading bogie indicate the worst case for
comparison.
Figure 9 : Band-pass Filter

5.3 Filtered Data
The filtered data the car body accelerations at
the front (upper plot) and the back (middle plot)
and the right wheel-rail impact factor (bottom plot)
were shown in Fig. 10.
(a) Wheel flat = 10mm
Figure 10 : Filtered Data

From Fig. 10, after the very high frequency
component was filtered out, the wheel-rail impact
factors were in the range of 0.6 ~ 1.5 (the bottom
plot in Fig. 10). At the instances of about 0.44s,
0.56s and 0.68s, the right wheel periodically
impacted on the rail due to the flat. It could be
seen that the accelerations at the front and the
back on the car body (the upper and middle plots
in Fig. 10) followed the impact pattern, and
acceleration
impact
values
measured
corresponded. However, the amplitudes of
acceleration impacts were not consistent due to
the effect of the track irregularity (shown in Fig. 6)
and the wagon component friction characteristics
including wedge friction (shown in Fig. 2 (c)).
(b) Wheel flat = 20mm
6. Simulation Results
6.1 Single Wheel Flat
(c) Wheel flat = 30mm
In order to detect the early stages of a wheel flat,

the simulations had been conducted for a single
flat on the right wheel of the first wheelset with the
lengths of 10mm to 70mm respectively at the
wagon speed of 80 km/h. Fig. 11 (a) ~ (e) showed
the accelerations at the car body front and back
points, and the right wheel-rail impact factors after
filtering. Note that in all cases the wagon body


accelerations of wagon car body at the front and

the back, and the right and left wheel impact
factors on the first wheelset at the speed of 80
km/h, when the right wheel had the wheel flat with
the length of 30mm and when both right and left
wheels had the wheel flat with the length of 30mm
and 50mm respectively.
(d) Wheel flat = 60mm
(a) Left wheel with flat = 30mm
(e) Wheel flat = 70mm

Figure 11 : Single Wheel Flat
From Fig. 11, when the wheel flat was small, e.g.
10mm and 20mm (Fig. 11 (a) and (b)), the wheel
impact forces due to the flats were too small and
were almost the same level as the track
irregularity, so that the pattern of wheel impact
forces (lower plot) could not always be easily
identified. However, the acceleration periodic
pattern at the wagon car body front at the
instances of about 0.44s, 0.56s and 0.68s could
be clearly identified. This means that the wagon
train health advisory system could be used to
detect and monitor the wheel flat from its early
stages. In other analysis, not shown, it was found
that a flat length as small as 10mm could be
detected, if the track was in perfect condition and
the appropriate data process method was used.
As the wheel flat length grew up to 30mm, the
periodic feature of both wheel impact forces and
car body accelerations was clearly shown, and the
wheel-rail impact factors increased significantly
(Fig. 11 (c) ~ (e)), e.g., the impact factor being
close to the range of 0.0 ~ 2.0 when wheel flat
length was 70mm. Correspondingly, the amplitude
of accelerations on the car body followed the
impact force pattern, increasing gradually.
6.2 Other Situations of Wheel Flat
The simulations had been carried out for the
situations of the right wheel with a flat and both
right and left wheels with the same flats on the first
wheelset. Fig. 12 (a), (b) and (c) showed the
(b) Both wheels with flat = 30mm
(c) Both wheels with flat = 50mm

Figure 12 : Other situations
Compared Fig. 12 (a) with Fig. 11 (c), it could be
found that the vertical accelerations of car body
were unchanged regardless of if the right or the
left wheel had a flat. This result is expected as
only the vertical acceleration measurement is
being used and this was assumed at the car body
longitudinal centreline. Even when both wheels
had the same small flat (e.g., the length of 30mm),
the accelerations of car body did not change
significantly (Fig. 12 (b)), however, when the flat


length increased (e.g., 50mm), both accelerations

of the car body and the wheel impact force did
change significantly (Fig. 12 (c)).
6.3 Effect of Wagon Speed
The simulations had been also conducted to
investigate the effect of the wagon travel speed
and wheel flats in early stages of development.
Fig. 13 shows some results at the speeds of 70
and 60 km/h respectively.
(d) Both wheels with flat = 30mm (70km/h)
(a) Both wheels with flat = 30mm (60km/h)
(e) Both wheels with flat = 50mm (70km/h)
(b) Both wheels with flat = 60mm (60km/h)
(f) Both wheels with flat = 100mm (70km/h)

Figure 13 : Speed effect
(c) Both wheels with flat = 100mm (60km/h)
At the speed of 60km/h, it was noted that at the

instances of 0.59s, 0.75s and 0.91s, the wheels
would impact on the rails due to the wheel flat.
Similarly, for the speed of 70km/h, the instances of
wheel impacts were at 0.50s, 0.64s, and 0.78s.
For the small flat (e.g. 30mm), it was not possible
to identify the wheel impact pattern from the
acceleration signals on wagon car body for the
speeds of 60 and 70 km/h based on Fig. 13 (a)
and (d). The reason is that from these graphs it
can be seen that the wheel impact forces (1.2
times larger than the static wheel load) due to the
wheel flat have the same level as the wheel
dynamic forces due to the track irregularity.


However, as the wheel flat increased, the wheel

impacts and corresponding wagon car body
acceleration impacts could be identified at the
speed of 60 km/h for the wheel flat with 60mm
(Fig. 13 (b)) and at the speed of 70km/h for the
wheel flat with 50mm (Fig. 13 (e)). Fig. 13 (c) and
(f) showed the wheel impacts and the wagon car
body acceleration impacts at the speeds of 60 and
70 km/h for the wheel flat with 100mm, which
clearly showed the periodic patterns.

[5]
[6]
[7]
7. CONCLUSION
A comprehensive wagon and track model has
been used to explore the possibility of wheel flat
early detection just using the measurement of
wagon car body accelerations. The acceleration
signals of wagon car body included high frequency
components due to the friction between wagon
components and low frequency components due
to suspension dynamics characteristics. Therefore,
the signal processing must be carried out to
design suitable data analysis methods. It was
found that with appropriate band pass filtering
wheel flats could be detected.
The simulations show that the acceleration impact
due to wheel flat length as small as 10 or 20mm in
the case study can be detected using the
acceleration signals of wagon car body provided
the wagon was travelling at sufficient speed, (e.g.
~80kph). The case study showed that the wheel
flats larger than 30mm were clearly detected form
both acceleration signals of the wagon car body.
The wheel flat with 30mm should be much less
than the alarm wheel flat (e.g., 40mm [11]). The
further simulations showed that the periodic
pattern of car body acceleration due to wheel flat
would be affected by the wagon travel speed and
the wheel flat sizes.
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
REFERENCE
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
J Jergus, C Odenmarck, R Lundn, P

Sotkovszki, B Karlsson, P Gullers, 1999.
Full-scale railway wheel flat experiments.
Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical
Engineers, Part F: Journal of Rail and Rapid
Transit, Vol. 213, No. 1, pp. 1-13
Masanobu Nankyo, Tadashi Ishihara and
Hikaru Inooka, 2006. Feedback Control of
Braking Deceleration on Railway Vehicle.
Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement,
and Control, Vol. 128, No. 2, pp. 244-250.
Kawaguchi, K., 2006. Development of WSP
system
for
freight
trains.
Railway
Technology Avalanche, No. 12, July 31, pp.
7
A Bracciali and G Cascini, 1997. Detection
of corrugation and wheelflats of railway
wheels using energy and cepstrum analysis
of rail acceleration. Proceedings of the
Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part F:
Journal of Rail and Rapid Transit. Vol. 211,
No. 2, pp. 109-116.
[14]
[15]
[16]
[17]
[18]
D. Barke and W. K. Chiu, 2005. Structural

Health Monitoring in the Railway Industry: A
Review. Structural Health Monitoring, Vol. 4,
No. 1, pp. 81-93.
Karoumi, R., Wiberg, J. and Liljencrantz, A.,
2005.Monitoring traffic loads and dynamic
effects using an instrumented railway
bridge. Engineering Structures, Vol. 27, pp.
1813-1819.
Gary W., 1998. Derailment prevention: early
detection is the key, Railway Age, Feb,
1998.
http://www.railinnovation.com.au/innovation/
technologies/healthcard.html
F Xia, C Cole and P Wolfs, 2007. An inverse
railway wagon model and its applications.
Vehicle System Dynamics, Vol. 45, No. 6,
pp. 583-605.
F Xia, C Cole and P Wolfs, 2008. Wheel
Rail Contact Forces Prediction and
Validation with Field Tests. Conference on
Railway Engineering, Perth, Australia, 7-10
September 2008, pp. 73-82.
M. Fermr and J.C.O. Nielsen, Vertical
interaction between train and track with soft
and stiff rail padsfull-scale experiments
and theory. Proceedings of the Institution of
Mechanical Engineers. Part FJournal of
Rail and Rapid Transit. 209 (1995), pp. 39
47.
A. Johansson and J.C.O. Nielsen, Out-ofround railway wheelswheel-rail contact
forces and track response from full-scale
measurements and numerical simulations.
Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical
Engineers. Part FJournal of Rail and
Rapid Transit 217 (2003), pp. 135146.
Dukkipati R.V. and Dong R., 1999. Impact
Loads due to Wheel Flats and Shells.
Vehicle System Dynamics, Vol. 31, No. 1,
pp. 1-22(22)
Wu, T.X. and Thompson, D.J., 2002. A
hybrid model for the noise generation due to
railway wheel flats. Journal of Sound and
Vibration, 251, (1), pp. 115-139.
Sun, Y.Q. and Cole, C., 2007. Wagon-Track
Modelling for Simulation of Three-Piece
Bogie Suspension Dynamics. Proc. Instn
Mech. Engrs., Vol. 221, Part C, 905-917.
Sun, Y.Q., Dhanasekar, M., 2002. A
dynamic model for the vertical interaction of
the rail track and wagon system.
International Journal of Solids and
Structures, Vol. 39, 1337-1359.
Sun,
Y.Q.
and
Cole,
C.,
2007.
Comprehensive wagon-Track Modelling for
Simulation
of
Three-Piece
Bogie
Suspension Dynamics. Proc. Instn Mech.
Engrs., Vol. 221, Part C, 905-917.
Sun, Y.Q. and Cole, C., 2008. Vertical
Dynamic Behaviour of Three-Piece Wagon
Suspensions with Two Types of Friction


[19]

Wedge. Journal of Multibody Syst Dyn, Vol.

19, 365-382
Zhai, W., 1997. Vehicle-Track Coupling
Dynamics. China Railway Publisher, ISBN
7-113-02458-0 (in Chinese).
Appendix - I All Parameters for a Wagon and

Track System
Parameter
Wagon Subsystem
Wagon car body mass
Mass moment of inertia of wagon car body
about X axis
about Y axis
about Z axis
Mass of front bolster
Mass of rear bolster
Mass moment of inertia of front bolster about
X axis
Mass moment of inertia of front bolster about
Z axis
Mass moment of inertia of rear bolster about X
axis
Mass moment of inertia of rear bolster about Z
axis
Mass of sideframe
The mass moment of inertia of sideframe about
X axis
Y axis
Z axis
Wheelset mass
Mass moment of inertia of wheelset about X, Z
axis
Mass moment of inertia of wheelset about Y
axis
Stiffness coefficient of secondary suspension
along Z axis
Parallelogram stiffness of bogie
Longitudinal distance from the mass centre of
wagon car body to the mass centre of the front
and the rear bolsters
Semi lateral distance between the left and the
right secondary suspensions in a bogie
Height between the mass centre of the wagon
car body and the bolster
Height between the mass centre of the
sideframe and the bottom of secondary
suspension
Height between the mass centre of the wheelset
and the sideframe
Semi longitudinal distance between wheelsets
in a bogie
Semi lateral distance between the left and the
right primary suspensions
Wheel diameter
Track Subsystem
Rail mass per meter
Rail cross-section area
Elastic modulus of rail
Shear modulus of rail
Rail second moment of area about Y axis
Rail second moment of area about Z axis
Timoshenko shear coefficient
Pad stiffness
Sleeper spacing
Height of ballast
Height of subballast
Elastic modulus of ballast
Elastic modulus of subballast
Subballast modulus
Density of ballast
Density of subballast
Interface Subsystem
Hertz spring constant
0.15 m
130106 N/m2
200106 N/m2
50106 N/m2
2600 kg/m3
2600 kg/m3
0.871011N/m3/2
Value
61000 kg
86576 kgm2
647182 kgm2
652982 kgm2
465 kg
365 kg
175 kgm2
176 kgm2
137 kgm2
138 kgm2
447.5 kg
100.4 kgm2
115.6 kgm2
115.6 kgm2
1120 kg
420.1 kgm2
100.4 kgm2
2.555106 N/m
5.15107 N/m
5.18 m
0.8001 m
0.8 m
0.1786 m
0.05 m
0.8375 m
0.8001 m
0.85 m
60 kg/m
7.7710-3 m2
2.071011 N/m2
8.11010 N/m2
2.9410-5 m4
4.910-6 m4
0.34
450 MN/m
0.685 m
0.30 m


Early Detection of Wheel Flats Using Wagon Body

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Early Detection of Wheel Flats Using Wagon Body

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

EARLY DETECTION OF WHEEL FLATS USING WAGON BODY

frequent trains with higher speed and higher axle

Yan Sun, Colin Cole and Chris Bosomworth

wagon car body acceleration measurements to