Week 2 Railwheel and Track

Objective: To perform a static structural analysis of rail wheel and track assembly subject to a bearing load and a translational joint load and study the total deformation, equivalent stress and the fatigue life.

Procedure:

1. Meshing: Mesh element size 50 mm and rail wheel and track contact face element size 35 mm.
2. Boundary Conditions:
   1. Bearing Load 100000 N:
   2. Bearing Load 500000 N:

Analysis:

1. Case 1:
   1. Bearing Load 100000 N:
      1. Total Deformation:
      2. Equivalent Stress:
      3. Life:
   2. Bearing Load 500000 N:
      1. Total Deformation:
      2. Equivalent Stress:
      3. Life:
2. Case 2: Total Deformation can also be represented as `sqrt(u_x^2+u_y^2+u_z^2)` where `u_x`, `u_y` and `u_z` represent the respective cartesian components of the displacement vector of a general point of body during deformation.

Result:

Bearing Load (N)	Total Deformation (mm)		Equivalent Stress (MPa)		Life (Number of Cycles)
	Maximum	Minimum	Maximum	Minimum	Maximum	Minimum
100000	1001.4	0	123.66	3.7989×10^-10	10^6	1.489×10^5
500000	1002.4	2.8422×10^-14	568.01	1.8541×10^-9	10^6	1035.6

Conclusion: Although the total deformation has not changed much on increasing the bearing load by five times, the equivalent stress and the life have changed significantly.