Friction rolling with lateral slip in rail vehicles

The paper deals with the dynamic phenomena accompanying the wheel rolling over a road (rail, track), with lateral slip effects. They occur in rolling of a wheel and wheelset on a straight track in the case of lateral load and especially on curves. Different curvature radii and rotary oscillations of wheelsets result in skew rolling and, in turn, in lateral slip oscillation in the contact zone between the wheel and rail. It significantly increases noise and wear in real structures. Double periodicity of motion was detected in an underground train. Hitherto, this phenomenon has not been reported in the literature. Experimental investigation was performed on a test stand for various parameters: the angle of skew rolling, velocity and contact pressure. Results were related to a two degree-of-freedom theoretical system. In the case of steel/polyester and polyamide/polyester friction pair, qualitatively similar results were obtained.