RAILWHEEL AND TRACK SIMULATION

OBJECTIVE:
Our objective is to perform a Static Structural Analysis on Railwheel and Track model by applying two different bearing loads and compare the results.

PROCEDURE:

The Railwheel Track model is imported into the ANSYS Workbench and the material is selected as Structural Steel.

The Contact type is selected as Frictional for the wheel and the track and Frictionless for the wheel and the shaft. The Joints are given to the model as Fixed for the track, Translational for the shaft because of rotating as well as translating the wheel along an axis and Planar for the wheel because of maintaining the wheel motion along the same plane on the track.

Meshing:

The model is meshed with the element size of 35 mm and the face sizing is also given as 35 mm for the contact region of the track and the wheel.

Loads:

The Bearing load is given to the model as 100000 N and 500000 N in between the contact surface of wheel and the shaft where the loads of the carrier act.

The Joint load is given as displacement as the DOF with the values ranging from 0 to 500 mm where the wheel is going to travel.

RESULT:

The Simulation is run and the results are obtained.

The Total Deformation of both the loads obtained are compared below:

BEARING LOAD(N)	MINIMUM(mm)	AVERAGE(mm)	MAXIMUM(mm)
100000	2.8422e^-14	444.05	999.11
500000	8.2863e^-14	444.1	999.22

The Equivalent Stress of both the loads obtained are compared below:

BEARING LOAD(N)	MINIMUM(MPa)	AVERAGE(MPa)	MAXIMUM(MPa)
100000	1.9454e^-10	51.221	115.25
500000	2.8226e^-10	203.38	457.61

The Life of the model of both the loads obtained are compared below:

BEARING LOAD(N)	MINIMUM(life cycles)	AVERAGE(life cycles)	MAXIMUM(life cycles)
100000	1.9226e^5	4.0009e^5	1e^6
500000	1816.7	30018	1e^6

The model is then implemented with an user defined result to find the Total Deformation under the load of 100000 N. To find it, an expression of sqrt(UX^2+UY^2+UZ^2) is given. The obtained user defined result is compared with the original Total Deformation inbuilt result that is obtained previously with the load of 100000 N

CASE	MINIMUM(mm)	AVERAGE(mm)	MAXIMUM(mm)
Inbuilt result	2.8422e^-14	444.05	999.11
User Defined Result	2.8422e^-14	444.05	999.11

CONCLUSION:

Based on the obtained results, we can decide that there is only a minimal change in the Total Deformation when two different bearing loads which are 100000, 500000 N applied. We find that by increasing the load, the deformation increases very slowly in all the range that includes minimum, average and maximum deformation.

By comparing the Equivalent Stress in both the loads, the minimum stress developed is having not that much change. But there are enormous change in the average and maximum stress developed with difference of 152.16 and 342.36 respectively. This shows that whenever there is a huge load difference applied, there will be a high amount of difference in the stress which is developed in the specimen.

The life both the loads are having differences in the minimum and average life cycles with the change in the values of 190443 and 370072 respectively. But the maximum life cycle of both the loads are giving the same values and this shows that these loads are safe to run the Railwheel irrespective of their loading criteria.

We also find that the User Defined result of Total Deformation for the load of 100000 N has the same values as the inbuilt result which is previously obtained by applying the expression.