Fatigue Failure Analysis of a Railway Wheel Using FEA

Abstract

In a railway transportation system, the railway wheel is the hardest and most critical component. Technological developments in the manufacturing of railway wheels in industries have made it possible to significantly extend the fatigue life of wheels. The manufacturing industries perform three tasks: aiding in train movement, supporting the carloads and also acts brake drum in the vehicle. The serious problems in railway engineering are fatigue design of a wheel by considering stress distribution, surface crack, plastic deformation and factor of safety. An attempt has been made in the study to describe the fatigue behavior of a wheel due to static structural and thermal loading. For this investigation of deformation stress distribution, the fatigue life was investigated by 22 mm web thickness wheel profile by using simulation software ANSYS. The fatigue analysis was carried out by applying the finite element method. The fatigue strength evaluation of the web plate was performed, and 0.50 mm deformation, 106.92 MPa von-mises stress and minimum life found 4.03E+05 cycles. The web portion of the wheel is subjected to the crack due to high cycle fatigue. The profile of the web can be modified to avoid the fatigue crack.