New profile for safer and more durable tram wheel operation

Abstract

Introduction and motivation. Polish trams operate on very old wheel profiles, which were designed over 25 years ago for vehicles which are now being put aside. The new ones present very different approach to vehicle construction which should be taken into consideration in terms of wheel-rail interaction, including the wheel profile. This and lack of proper approach to tram wheel-rail interaction gave inspiration for the research project „Identification and modeling of nonlinear phenomena at the wheel/rail contact area for the development of a new tramway wheel profile”. This paper describes briefly the process of wheel profile optimization and it’s empirical verification.