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Spalling in contact surface of rail is a typical form of rolling contact fatigue, which is a difficult problem to solve in railway. Once the spalling occurs in the rail, the wheel-rail dynamic interaction will become more severe. The wheel-rail dynamic interaction is investigated based on the theory of vehicle-track coupled dynamics in this paper, where the excitation modes of the rail spalling failure are taken into consideration for high-speed wheel-rail system. A modified excitation model of rail spalling failure is proposed. It can enable the investigations on two kinds of excitation modes in wheel-rail system due to the rail spalling, including the pulse and the harmonic excitation modes. The excitation mode can be determined by the ratio of the spalling length to its critical length. Thus, the characteristics of wheel-rail dynamic vibration excited by two kinds of excitation are simulated in detail. Consequently, the limited value of the spalling length is suggested for high-speed railway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A non-uniform rail wear prediction model is developed to analyse the influence of hollow-worn wheels on rail wear. The rail wear prediction model considers the combination of vehicle-track coupled dynamics model, Kalker's variational method, and the material wear model developed by the University of Sheffield, together with a new sampling and accumulation strategy. Taking into account the track random irregularity, the rail wear distribution for particular cross-sections at regular intervals and its effect on wheel-rail dynamic interaction are investigated using a high-speed vehicle with different tread hollow–worn wheels that run on a tangent track. The simulation results indicate that hollow-worn wheels will give rise to noteworthy change on the non-uniform rail wear distribution, cause a significant increase in rail wear and have a distinct effect on the wheel-rail interaction. • A non-uniform rail wear prediction model is established. • Effect of hollow worn wheel on the evolution of rail wear is analysed. • Wheel-rail interaction under the influence of wheel/rail wear is calculated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]