Available online at www.sciencedirect.

com

ScienceDirect
Procedia Engineering 00 (2016) 000–000
www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia

11th International Symposium on Plasticity and Impact Mechanics, Implast 2016

Numerical Investigation of Ratchetting Behaviour in Rail Steel under

Cyclic Rolling-Sliding Contact
Jay Prakash Srivastavaa,*, M V Ravi Kirana, P K Sarkara, V Ranjana
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad-826004, Jharkhand, INDIA

Abstract

This paper presents a numerical investigation to describe ratchetting behaviour in rail steel under cyclic rolling-sliding contact
state. The study numerically quantifies cyclic plastic strain accumulation in rail material. This study combines the Hertzian contact
pressure, longitudinal tangential traction based on Carter’s theory and heat flux distribution across the contact patch to simulate the
wheel-rail contact problem. In the numerical procedure the effective loading is translated on the rail surface for twelve wheel
passes. Temperature dependent cyclic plasticity material model of Chaboche featuring non-linear kinematic hardening is employed
that simulates the ratchetting behaviour of the rail material. Results are extracted in terms of plastic strain and stress-strain response.
These results are able to augment the understanding of failure mechanisms in rail material that arise from friction based thermo-
mechanical load at the dynamic wheel-rail contact interface. The knowledge evolved can provide useful information to the
development and application of rail steels and the development of effective rail maintenance strategies in order to mitigate rail
material degradation.

© 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of Implast 2016.

Keywords: Wheel-Rail, Creepage, Wheel Slip, Plastic Deformation, Ratchetting;

1. Introduction

Rail-wheel dynamics induce Hertz contact zone together with high traction forces and frictional heat due to rolling-
sliding condition prevalent over the contact patch. This leads to plastic deformation in the rail material, at surface
and/or subsurface level, with each wheel pass. The plastic deformation in one cycle may be very small but after many

*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +0326-2203527; fax: +0326-2296563.
E-mail address: jaysrvstv@gmail.com

1877-7058 © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of Implast 2016.
2 Author name / Procedia Engineering 00 (2016) 000–000

Nomenclature

a,b Semi major and semi minor axis of elliptical contact area
a Semi length of the contact area
c Semi length of stick zone
C, γ User-input material parameter
D Wagon wheel diameter
Ft Tangential force
K Normalised size of stick zone
L Axle bogie length
M Wagon tonnage per axle
n Number of kinematic model to be superposed
P Contact Pressure
p0 Peak contact pressure
q1 , q2 Two elliptical traction distribution
q Resultant tangential traction distribution
To Ambient temperature
V Train forward speed
x,y Coordinate axes
α Backstress
ε Heat partition factor
 pl Plastic strain rate
 pl Magnitude of plastic strain rate
θ Temperature
µ Coefficient of friction
 Normalised tangential traction

cycles of operation it accumulates to significantly large value. The accumulation of plastic strain with each loading
cycle (wheel-pass) is termed as ratchetting. These ratchetting strains when reaches the limiting ductility of the rail
material, the rail fails at the local material points, that gives rise to the initiation of wear and/or rolling contact fatigue
cracks. Wear and rolling contact fatigue are the sources of damage that account for most rail maintenance costs. Also,
this affects the safety and operation of rail transport system. It is necessary to investigate the material condition prior
to crack initiation (i) to ensure safety, (ii) to minimize maintenance and maximize railway transport punctuality, (iii)
to meet the future demand of higher axle load and increasing speed, and (iv) to suggest improvements for the rail
materials available today to prevent future catastrophic rail failure possibilities. This has drawn much attention world-
wide to study the ratchetting behaviour of rail steel mainly by means of numerical [1–5] and experimental [1,6]
approaches.
Tyfour and Beynon [7] investigated experimentally that accumulation of unidirectional plastic strain at and below
the contact surface, is the main reason for surface and subsurface cracking when the unidirectional plastic strain
exceeds the critical strain (ductility). Performing field test and real time experimental investigations are complex and
cost prohibitive. A numerical approach, e.g., employing finite element methods are widely used by researchers to
simulate rail wheel contact problem. Xu and Jiang [8] developed a two-dimensional finite element model incorporating
cyclic plasticity theory to simulate the elastic-plastic stresses for the partial slip (stick-slip) line rolling contact
condition. Widiyarta et al. [4] studied the effect of frictional heating and found that there is an increase in the rate of
damage accumulation by ratcheting, leading to increased wear and tendency for rolling contact fatigue. Kapoor [9]
and Bandula-Heva and Dhanasekar [10] further confirmed that ratcheting plays a key role in causing rolling contact
failure of rail steels. Pun et al. [2] simulated the wheel–rail cyclic rolling contact problems considering combined non-
Hertzian contact pressure by finite element analysis incorporating longitudinal tangential traction from Carter’s
theory.
All these studies applied either structural load or thermal load, due to friction, treating them separately. However,
present work combines the Hertzian contact pressure, longitudinal tangential traction based on Carter’s theory and
 Author name / Procedia Engineering 00 (2016) 000–000 3

heat flux distribution, due to friction, across the contact patch to simulate the wheel-rail contact problem. These
loading conditions are translated on the rail surface for twelve wheel passes. Using a commercial finite element
package ANSYS 14.0 simulation is carried out to study the ratchetting behaviour of the rail steel. Material model
plays an important role in the evaluation of stress and strain variation for the considered time domain (12 pass at 90
kmph). For this, temperature dependent material parameters [11] are used in the simulation. A cyclic plasticity material
model of Chaboche and Lemaitre featuring non-linear kinematic hardening is employed that simulates the ratchetting
behaviour of the rail material. Results are extracted in terms of ratchetting plastic strain. These results reveal rail
material deterioration mechanisms arising from friction based thermo-mechanical load at the dynamic wheel-rail
contact interface. Consequent results should provide useful information required for material development of rail steel
also enable better maintenance strategies to reduce material degradation.

2. Methodology

Normal wheel on rail running condition always experience some microslipage between the contacting surfaces. The
contact region embodies stick and slip zones. In the slip zone, the tangential force is proportional to the normal
pressure. Based on the strip theory, Haines and Ollerton [12] established the relationship between the normalized
tangential traction  and the size of stick zone K at the major axis of the contact area. It is described by Equation (1)
and graphically shown in Fig. 1.
3  2 1  
  1   2 K  K 2 1  K  K 2   1  K  sin 1 2 K  K 2  (1)
2  3 3  
Ft c
  ; K (2)
P a
In above, K is the normalized size of stick zone, c is the semi length of stick zone and a  is the semi length of the
contact area. The stick-slip condition depends on  varying from 0 to 1.   0 represents a pure rolling case, i.e.
free of slip and spin, while   1 represents the full slip contact. Further, 0    1 represents partial slip condition
occurring during a normal wheel-rail rolling contact operation. Present simulation is done for   0.75 .

Fig. 1. Relationship between the normalized tangential traction ζ and Fig. 2. Distribution of tangential tractions under partial slip
the normalized size of stick zone K at the major width of the contact conditions [11].
area

The contact area is divided into equally spaced strips in the lateral direction y and parallel to the rolling direction x.
The pertinent parameters used for this calculation is given in table 1. In each strip, the normal pressure distribution is
taken as the Hertzian pressure distribution [11]:
4 Author name / Procedia Engineering 00 (2016) 000–000

1
2
 x2 
p  x   p0 1   (4)
  a2 
 
where p0 is the peak contact pressure and a  is the semi length of the contact strip at a distance y from the x-axis.
The magnitudes of p0 and a  are given by equation (5) and (6) as functions of y and b.
1
 y2  2
p0  p0 1  2  ; (5)
 b 
1
 y2  2
a   a 1  2  ; (6)
 b 
Carter's theory [13] is applied to each strip of the elliptical contact patch in a way that the resulting tangential traction
incorporates superposition of two elliptical distributions. This is given by q1  x, y  and q2  x , y  :
1 1
2
 x2  c   x  d  2  2
q1  x, y    p0 1   ; q2  x, y     p0 1   (7)
  a  2  a  2
 c 
  
where 2 c is the length of the stick region and d   a   c . The distribution of tangential traction for the static case
thus becomes
q  x, y   q1  x, y   q2  x, y  (8)

Fig. 3. Tangential traction distribution for ζ = 0.75

Table 1: Parameters used for present simulation.

Parameters Symbol Value Unit

Wagon wheel diameter D 0.915 m
Wagon tonnage per axle M 17 tons
Semi axes rail-wheel contact ellipse a,b 7.32, 3.61 mm
Normal maximum pressure 1510 MPa
Ambient Temperature To 30 °C
Heat partition factor ε 0.5 -
Environment - Dry -
Train forward speed V 90 Kmph
Axle bogie distance L 1830 mm
 Author name / Procedia Engineering 00 (2016) 000–000 5

3. Material Properties

An elasto-plastic constitutive model featuring non-linear kinematic hardening following Lemaitre and Chaboche as
implemented in ANSYS V 14.0 is employed. The model uses an associated flow rule with von Mises yield criterion.
The relative stress is used to evaluate the yield function, and the backstress tensor is given by the superposition of a
number of evolving kinematic backstress tensors [14]:
n
  i (9)
i 1

Where, n is the number of kinematic models to be superposed. The evolution of each backstress model in the
superposition is given by the kinematic hardening rule:
2 1 dCi 
 i  Ci  pl   i  pl   (10)
3 Ci d
In equation 10, C and  are user-input material parameters,  pl is the plastic strain rate,  pl is the magnitude
i i
of the plastic strain rate, and θ is the temperature. Temperature dependent thermal and mechanical properties are
given in table 2-4.

Table 2: Temperature dependent mechanical properties of rail material [11].

Temperature, °C Young’s Modulus, GPa Poisson’s Ratio Bulk Modulus, GPa Shear Modulus, GPa
20 180 0.2841 138.95 70.088
100 180 0.2865 140.52 69.957
200 180 0.2902 142.99 69.757
250 177 0.2921 142.3 68.687
300 175 0.294 141.59 67.62
350 172 0.2962 141.07 66.541
400 170 0.2985 140.61 65.46

Table 3: Temperature dependent thermal properties of the rail material [11].

Temperature, °C Thermal Conductivity, Wm-1C-1 Coefficient of thermal Expansion, x 10-6 K-1 Specific Heat, Jkg-1C-1
20 47.1 11.72 468.6
100 47.1 12.2 490.7
200 45.3 12.8 527.2
300 43 13.4 565.9
400 40 13.8 614.6

Table 4: Temperature dependent material parameters including initial kinematic hardening modulus ‘C’ and non-linear kinematic hardening
parameter ‘γ’ [11].

Temperature, °C Yield Stress, MPa Material Constant, C1 , MPa Material Constant, 1

20 540 20800 26
100 540 19600 25.4
200 540 18000 24
250 540 17000 25.5
300 540 16000 27.7
350 540 15000 30.2
400 540 13900 34

4. Finite element Model

Simulation is carried out for 105 mm long rail section, shown in Fig. 4. For computations, vehicle running at a forward
speed (V) of 90 km/h is taken into account. The semi major axis (a = 7.32 mm) and semi minor axis (b = 3.61 mm) of
6 Author name / Procedia Engineering 00 (2016) 000–000

the rail–wheel contact ellipse is obtained based on Hertzian Contact Theory [15][16]. Thermal-Structural sequential
coupling technique, shown in Fig. 5 , is employed for simulation using commercial finite element software ANSYS
14.0. Loading condition at the dynamic contact interface involves Hertzian contact pressure, longitudinal tangential
traction based on Carter’s theory and heat flux distribution. These loading conditions are translated on the rail surface
for twelve wheel passes. The wheel-rail contact patch was assumed to be heat flux boundary. The other open running
surfaces of the rail and outer surface of the rail was subjected to convection. The heat transfer coefficient hc is chosen
to be 12 W/m2K [17], and the ambient temperature is 30°C. For thermal analysis element used is Solid 90 and Solid
186 is used for structural analysis. The finite element model consists of 25137 elements and 113777 nodes. To
standarize the contact simulation element size at the contact loading zone is taken to be of 1 mm size [16].

Fig. 4. Finite Element Model of the rail section considered for the current simulation.

Sequential Coupling

Thermal Boundary Condition

Thermal Model Structural Boundary Condition

Thermal Results Structural Model Results

Fig. 5. Finite element analysis model for the current simulation using ANSYS 14.0.

5. Results and Discussion

The contact patch at the wheel-rail interface forms in a cyclic manner with running of the wheel on rail. This provides
conditions like free rolling, partial slip and full slip states. Present study mainly attempts to quantify cyclic plastic
strain accumulation in rail material for partial slip condition. The formulation combines Hertzian contact pressure,
 Author name / Procedia Engineering 00 (2016) 000–000 7

longitudinal tangential traction based on Carter’s theory and heat flux distribution across the contact patch to simulate
the wheel-rail rolling contact problem. The superimposed loading is given translation on the rail surface for twelve
wheel passes taking into account the corresponding surface velocity. The procedure allows thermal-structural
sequentially coupled field simulation to solve the thermal-elastic-plastic finite element model. Initially, transient
temperature field is obtained and then it is fed as an input boundary condition to the structural model. Results are
extracted, at the mid-section of the rail simulation domain, in terms of ratchetting curve and equivalent plastic strain.
Fig. 6 shows the residual stress-strain response, for ζ = 0.75, after twelve loading passes. The residual stresses stabilize
after a limited number of rolling reversals. However, the results reveal increasing rolling passes increase residual
strains at a reduced rate. After the stresses stabilize, every load cycle induces accumulation of plastic deformation.
Eventually the deformation exceeds materials ductility, producing rupture. This process is designated by ratchetting
failure or incremental collapse. Maximum strain accumulation region is located at the top surface of the rail. Fig. 7
shows the equivalent plastic strain distribution across the mid–section of the rail simulation domain.

Fig. 6. Ratchetting Graphs for different values of normalised Fig. 7. Location of maximum strain after 12th cycle for different
tangential traction. normalised tangential traction values.

6. Conclusion

The tiny wheel-rail contact interface governs the dynamic performance of rail vehicles. The load transmission
occurs through this small contact interface giving high stress concentration that often leads to serious damage
phenomena. The investigation exposed the ratchetting behavior of rail for partial slip condition. Combining contact
pressure, traction load and friction load to apply on the contact zone is attempted for the first time to reveal the
ratchetting failure or incremental collapse events. Results for stress strain response are shown to be extractable in
terms of strain accumulation with each loading reversal. The ratchetting strain accumulates with every cycle of
operation that reaching the limit of ductility of the rail material will cause localized brittle failure of the rail material.
This issue remains to be investigated in future.

References

[1] C.L. Pun, Q. Kan, P.J. Mutton, G. Kang, W. Yan, Ratcheting behaviour of high strength rail steels under bi-axial compression–torsion
loadings: Experiment and simulation, Int. J. Fatigue. 66 (2014) 138–154.
[2] C.L. Pun, Q. Kan, P.J. Mutton, G. Kang, W. Yan, An efficient computational approach to evaluate the ratcheting performance of rail
steels under cyclic rolling contact in service, Int. J. Mech. Sci. 101-102 (2015) 214–226.
[3] C. Springs, R. Halama, M. Fusek, Z. Poruba, C. Republic, B. Group, et al., Ratcheting Behavior of Class C Wheel Steel and Its
Prediction by Modified AbdelKarim-Ohno Model, in: 10th Int. Conf. Contact Mech. C. Color. Springs, Colorado, USA, 2015.
[4] I.M. Widiyarta, F.J. Franklin, A. Kapoor, Modelling thermal effects in ratcheting-led wear and rolling contact fatigue, Wear. 265
(2008) 1325–1331.
[5] F.J. Franklin, T. Chung, A. Kapoor, Ratcheting and fatigue-led wear in rail – wheel contact, Fatigue Fract. Eng. Mater. Struct. 26
(2003) 949–955.
8 Author name / Procedia Engineering 00 (2016) 000–000

[6] A.C. Athukorala, D.V. De Pellegrin, Ratcheting and Wear Behavior of Australian Rail Steel : Experimental Investigation of Material
Properties and Sampling Method, in: 10th Int. Conf. Contact Mech. C. Color. Springs, Color. USA, 2015.
[7] W.R. Tyfour, J.H. Beynon, The effect of rolling direction reversal on the wear rate and wear mechanism of pearlitic rail steel, Tribol.
Int. 27 (1994) 401–412.
[8] B. Xu, Y. Jiang, Elastic-Plastic Finite Element Analysis of Nonsteady State Partial Slip Wheel-Rail Rolling Contact, J. Tribol. 124
(2002) 20.
[9] A. Kapoor, Wear by plastic ratchetting, Wear. 212 (1997) 119–130.
[10] T. Bandula-Heva, M. Dhanasekar, Failure of discontinuous railhead edges due to plastic strain accumulation, Eng. Fail. Anal. 44 (2014)
110–124.
[11] S. Caprioli, A. Ekberg, Numerical evaluation of the material response of a railway wheel under thermomechanical braking conditions,
Wear. 314 (2014) 181–188.
[12] D.J. Haines, E. Ollerton, Contact Stress Distributions on Elliptical Contact Surfaces Subjected to Radial and Tangential Forces, Proc.
Inst. Mech. Eng. 177 (1963) 95–114.
[13] F.W. Carter, On the action of locomotive driving wheel, Proc. R. Soc. London, Ser. A. 112 (1926) 151–157.
[14] ANSYS Inc., ANSYS Mechanical User’s Guide, 2014.
[15] J.P. Srivastava, P.K. Sarkar, V. Ranjan, An Approximate Analysis for Hertzian Elliptical Wheel-Rail Contact Problem, in: Proc. 1st Int.
16th Natl. Conf. Mach. Mech., Roorkee, 2013: pp. 249–253.
[16] J.P. Srivastava, P.K. Sarkar, V. Ranjan, Contact Stress Analysis in Wheel–Rail by Hertzian Method and Finite Element Method, J. Inst.
Eng. Ser. C. 95 (2014) 319–325.
[17] M.R.K. Vakkalagadda, K.P. Vineesh, V. Racherla, Estimation of railway wheel running temperatures using a hybrid approach, Wear.
328-329 (2015) 537–551.