Research on Wear of Locomotive Wheel Considering Traction

With the development of heavy-load locomotives, the wheel wear increases remarkable due to the excessive dynamic force in wheel and rail. For locomotives, the wheel-axle traction is relative large and has significant effect on the rail wheel creepages, which have a direct influence on wheel rail wear. To research the influence on wheel rail wear by traction, a model has been built to calculate the wear of an electric locomotive when running at a constant speed and starting condition, which considers the transmission system based on Archard wear model. The wheel wear is calculated according to a certain actual line, and compared with the measured data, in order to research the abnormal wear on wheel flange during the condition of normal operation by the calculation model of tread wear of the locomotive. The results show that when the locomotive runs at a constant speed of 260 thousand km, the traction increase by 80 kN on the basis of 40 kN and 120 kN, the account of wear increase by 0.74 mm and 1.74 mm respectively; and with the comparison to the measured data, the calculated results are in good agreement with the experimental results, the accuracy of the model has been proved; reducing the lateral displacement of the intermediate wheelset and the side lubrication of rail can greatly reduce tread wear, when the lateral displacement of the intermediate wheelset is changed from 15 mm to 10 mm, its cumulative wear reduce by 15.4%; and the maximum cumulative wear of first, second, and third wheelsets are decreased by 13.40%, 21.32% and 6.46% after side lubrication of rail respectively.