Implementation of the temperature calculation model in a multibody code for the investigation of frictional heating processes at the wheel-rail interface for heavy haul locomotives

The calculation of temperatures in the contact zone at the wheel and rail interface is a very complex and important issue for multidisciplinary studies. The knowledge of temperature in the contact interface between two bodies and with the possible presence of a third body layer allows making informed judgments on processes in areas such as lubricant choice, wear estimation, life cycle prediction, etc. This paper is focused on the development of a temperature modelling methodology in Gensys multibody code which also presents its implementation for the study of temperatures at various common areas of contact (top of rail, gauge corner and gauge face contacts). Under normal operational practice, all these contact areas have different coefficients of friction which should be characterised as velocity and slip dependant variables. In order to show the workability of the developed methodology, numerical experiments for a heavy haul locomotive equipped with a simplified bogie traction control has been performed on curved track, where a locomotive has been operated under maximum traction forces and with longitudinal and lateral coupler forces attached in order to take into account train dynamics. For these experiments, both new and worn rail profiles have been used. Limitations of the proposed methodology as well as proposed future work and further improvements are discussed.