Simulation of Railroad Crack Growth Life under the Influence of Combination of Mechanical Contact and Thermal Loads

Masoudi Nejad, Reza; Salehi, S.M.; Farrahi, Gholam Hossein

Volume 2, Issue 2 (11-2015) IJRARE 2015, 2(2): 19-28 | Back to browse issues page

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Masoudi Nejad R, Salehi S, Farrahi G H. Simulation of Railroad Crack Growth Life under the Influence of Combination of Mechanical Contact and Thermal Loads. IJRARE 2015; 2 (2) :19-28
URL: http://ijrare.iust.ac.ir/article-1-203-en.html

Simulation of Railroad Crack Growth Life under the Influence of Combination of Mechanical Contact and Thermal Loads

Reza Masoudi Nejad

, S.M. Salehi

, Gholam Hossein Farrahi

School of Mechanical Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

Abstract: (1839 Views)

One of the most important issues in railroad wheels is residual stresses. It is desirable to produce less residual stresses when possible and to decrease the remaining residual stresses in the wheels. The goal of this paper is to predict the crack propagation detail in a railroad mono-block wheel in the presence of residual stress induced by manufacturing process and service conditions. A 3-D elastic-plastic finite element analysis, using the ANSYS/PDS tool is used to estimate the residual stress field and also the superposed alternating rolling contact stresses in a mono-block wheel. A three-dimensional finite element procedure is developed for analyzing fatigue crack growth in the wheels by using Franc3D software. Fracture mechanics is used to predict the crack growth life developed from a two-stage fatigue loading cycle where both mechanical loads and thermal loads are present. The results revealed that crack growth life is highly sensitive to the residual stress. Therefore, this factor significantly affects the crack growth life of railroad wheels during service conditions. In the present investigation, a number of parameters such as the axle load, crack size and coefficient of friction are studied using the proposed model.

Keywords: Residual stresses, Crack propagation, Manufacturing process, Finite element, Service condition.

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Type of Study: Research | Subject: Railway track and structures