Influence of viscoelastic mechanical properties of rail pads on wheel and corrugated rail rolling contact at high speeds

The rubber tie-plates on rail fasteners display very marked nonlinear stiffness and damping characteristics, and play an important role in railway systems. This paper studies the influence of the viscoelastic mechanical properties of the rubber tie-plate on the transient rolling contact behavior of the wheel and rail. Firstly, the viscoelastic mechanical properties of high-speed rail pads were obtained through laboratory tests and described theoretically by means of a modified fractional derivative Zener model. After this, an explicit finite element model is proposed to investigate the wheel and corrugated rail rolling contact. The numerical study shows that the viscoelastic mechanical properties have a significant effect on the response strength of the wheel-rail force and axle box acceleration at the main frequencies.