A review of thermal railway wheel modelling – Applicability and limitations

Finite element analysis (FEA) of heat transfer (thermal) in railway wheels is important for understanding temperature distributions that may otherwise be extremely difficult or impossible to collect while wheels are in service on rail vehicles. Obtaining the temperature field with respect to time allows the determination of the stress field which can be applied in a wide range of damage prediction modelling. To create an accurate heat transfer analysis, the thermal load, both going into and out of the wheel, must be well defined. At the same time, parameters such as wheel dimensions, analysis type and axisymmetric assumptions are important to improve accuracy and computational speed. This paper presents a review of the thermal loads used for heat transfer analysis of railway wheels, particularly during heat treatment and frictional braking. A review of past heat transfer analysis was conducted, and four key takeaways have been provided.