A Theoretical Model of Rail Corrugation on a Slab Track

Research on rail corrugation were briefly reviewed. A rail corrugation model for the whole vehicle and the slab track was developed. It considered a combination of the coupling dynamics model of a whole vehicle and track, the modified Kalker’s non-Hertzian rolling contact model for wheel and rail, a material wear model and an accumulated wear model. It takes not only the effect of wheel/rail transient dynamic interaction on the formation and development of corrugation into account, but also the effect of the accumulated corrugation on the wheel/rail contact and coupling dynamics. That is, this model can take into account a feedback process between the long-term effects of the rail corrugation and the transient coupling dynamic of whole vehicle. This model can be used to study the formation mechanism of rail corrugation. And the initiation and development of the corrugations caused by various track defects, such as track gap, scratch, dent and random geometry irregularities, can be analyzed. A numerical example was presented to verify the procedure. The numerical results of the example are reasonable and indicate the development of corrugation in the initial stage after grinding.