The influence of plastic deformations on growth of subsurface rolling contact fatigue cracks in railway wheels
Journal article, 2006

A subsurface rolling contact fatigue crack in a railway wheel is studied. Stress and strain fields are evaluated by elasto-plastic finite-element simulations. The robustness and validity of the numerical model are investigated. A suitable measure to characterize crack propagation is then sought. Numerical results show that the effect of crack tip plasticity is small for cases studied, indicating that linear elastic fracture mechanics approaches are applicable. Further, the magnitudes of the stress intensity factor in mode I, KI, are negative implying crack closure. Motivated by these findings, the stress intensity factor range in mode II, ΔKII, is employed as a measure of crack propagation. Finally, studies are carried out to quantify the effects of altered contact load conditions and crack face friction.

fatigue crack growth

railway wheels

numerical simulations

plastic deformation

parametric study

fracture mechanics

Rolling contact fatigue

Author

Eka Lansler

Chalmers, Applied Mechanics, Material and Computational Mechanics

Anders Ekberg

Chalmers, Applied Mechanics, Material and Computational Mechanics

Elena Kabo

Chalmers, Applied Mechanics, Material and Computational Mechanics

Hans Andersson

Chalmers, Applied Mechanics, Material and Computational Mechanics

Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part F: Journal of Rail and Rapid Transit

0954-4097 (ISSN) 20413017 (eISSN)

Vol. 220 4 461-473

Subject Categories

Applied Mechanics

DOI

10.1243/0954409JRRT37

More information

Created

10/7/2017