Impacts of vehicle light-weighting on wheel wear and RCF and a novel ultralight vehicle design

Vehicle light-weighting is a critical design target for rail vehicles, as it reduces energy consumption and enhances the vehicle capacity and dynamic performance, making the railway system more attractive in addressing the rising environmental challenges and increasing demand in transportation. This paper presents a quantitative analysis of the impact of vehicle light-weighting on wheel wear and rolling contact fatigue (RCF), using the USFD wear law, the shakedown map and the Tγ approach. A conventional metro vehicle is utilized as a baseline model, and the mass reductions from different vehicle components (i.e., car-body, bogie frame and wheelset) are implemented for the simulation considering various running scenarios. The effect of mass reduction on wheel wear can be divided into two aspects: quasi-static wheel load and wheel-rail dynamic interaction. In short-radius curves, the change in static axle-load predominantly determines wheel wear, whereas in large-radius curves and tangent track, the wheel-rail dynamic interaction plays an important role, thus showing different rates of wear reduction when mass reduction is achieved respectively from car-body, bogie frames and wheelsets. Reducing vehicle mass can significantly reduce wheel damage of RCF on short-radius curves with curve radii above 400 m, while there is a risk of increasing RCF on tight curve R250, due to the impaired function of wear to counteract the crack propagation. This work also exhibits a specific innovative ultralight vehicle design, where the linear synchronous motor technology is applied to reduce substantially the mass of the vehicle without impairing the capability to provide the required amount of tractive effort. The proposed ultralight vehicle can reduce the wheel wear by approximately 40% and shows substantial benefit for preventing RCF damage, compared to a conventional vehicle.