Rolling contact fatigue (RCF) damage of wheel-rail systems is a critical issue affecting the safety and reliability of railway systems. Currently, finite element methods are commonly employed to analyze the initiation of rolling contact fatigue cracks in wheels. The established finite element models for rail-wheel rolling contact typically assume isotropic material properties, neglecting the influence of microstructural characteristics such as grain size and crystallographic orientation. However, studies have shown that the RCF damage behavior of wheel materials is closely related to microstructural features like grain size and orientation. Therefore, it is crucial to develop an RCF crack initiation model for wheels that incorporate material microstructural characteristics to simulate crack initiation. To account for the effects of microstructural features, a crystal plasticity finite element model considering grain orientation and grain size is established based on the crystal plasticity theoretical framework. The Jiang-Sehitoglu multiaxial fatigue criterion and a cohesive zone damage model are integrated, with grains modeled using a crystal plasticity constitutive law and grain boundaries described by a modified cohesive traction-separation constitutive law. This model is used to simulate the stress-strain response of the wheel surface material and the RCF damage behavior at grain boundaries under cyclic loading. The influence of axle load, friction coefficient, and random grain orientation on the distribution of fatigue damage, fatigue parameter (PF), and crack initiation life is analyzed. The results indicate that under cyclic rolling contact loading, fatigue damage first accumulates at grain boundaries on the wheel contact surface, showing obvious inhomogeneity and local concentration characteristics, and is mainly concentrated within a depth of 0.2 mm from the contact surface. As the number of cycles increases, the damage develops along the depth direction, and microcracks eventually initiate at grain boundaries on the contact surface, all within 0.1 mm from the contact surface, which is consistent with the field observation results. When the friction coefficient increases from 0.3 to 0.5, the maximum PF value increases from 1.81 to 3.64, with an increase of 101.1%, and the crack initiation life decreases from 149 305 cycles to 22 150 cycles, with a decrease of 85.2%. When the axle load increases from 17 t to 25 t, the maximum PF value increases from 2.81 to 3.79, with an increase of 34.9%, and the crack initiation life decreases from 46 644 cycles to 22 741 cycles, with a maximum decrease of 51.2%. The maximum PF values corresponding to the three groups of random grain orientations are in the range of 2.75-3.01, with a maximum difference of only 9.5%, and the crack initiation life is between 41 274-46 644 cycles, showing little overall difference, but the specific initiation positions of microcracks are significantly different. Axle load and friction coefficient are the main external factors affecting the RCF crack initiation life of wheels; the increase of both significantly increases the PF value at grain boundaries, aggravate fatigue damage, and thus shorten the crack initiation life, and the influence degree of the friction coefficient is greater than that of the axle load. Grain orientation has a limited overall impact on the PF value and crack initiation life, but it changes the distribution and concentration position of local PF, thereby affecting the distribution and concentration area of fatigue damage, leading to changes in the initiation position of microcracks. By establishing an RCF crack initiation model that incorporates microstructural characteristics, this study provides new perspectives on revealing the fatigue damage mechanisms of wheel materials, while offering theoretical guidance for the operation and maintenance of railway wheels, specifically, monitoring wheel cracks under heavy axle load conditions and reasonably regulating the wheel-rail friction coefficient can help extend the service life of wheels in engineering practice.
Key words
railway wheel /
crystal plasticity /
cohesive zone model /
rolling contact fatigue /
crack initiation
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Funding
National Natural Science Foundation of China (52405218, U2568228); the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2024M762674); the Open Project of State Key Laboratory of Safety and Resilience of Civil Engineering in Mountain Area (HJGZ2024109)
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