2026-10-13T07:49:26Z https://www.scidb.cn/oai

10.57760/sciencedb.Tribology.00051 2026-06-22T15:39:53Z

2026-06-22 Influence Law of Surface Texture on Wheel-Rail Adhesion Characteristics under the Dry Condition doi:10.57760/sciencedb.tribology.00051 en Objective: Train operational safety is closely related to the adhesion performance at the wheel-rail interface. When the adhesion coefficient at the wheel-rail interface is too low, train operational reliability becomes difficult to guarantee. This not only leads to issues such as extended braking distances, reduced acceleration performance, and wheel slippage, but slippage further exacerbates wear and damage to the wheel-rail surfaces. Therefore, to effectively enhance the adhesion performance at the wheel-rail contact interface while optimizing wear conditions and reducing surface damage, this study employed a mixed orthogonal experimental design to prepare surface textures with varying area occupancy, depths, and edge lengths on wheel-rail specimens. Method: Using a wheel-rail rolling contact fatigue testing machine, the influence of surface texture parameters on wheel-rail adhesion characteristics under dry conditions was investigated. By adjusting the slip rate, the adhesion-slip characteristic curves and steady-state adhesion curves of textured and untextured specimens were compared and analyzed. Furthermore, a textured parameter-based adhesion curve fitting method was developed using the POLACH function, enabling quantitative description of the adhesion behavior of textured specimens. Results: Results indicated that compared to the adhesion coefficient of 0.46 for the non-textured specimen, the adhesion coefficient between wheel and rail on the specimen surface with optimal texture parameters (area occupancy 5%, texture edge length 0.4 mm, texture depth 0.6 mm) increased by 17%. Furthermore, under these texture parameters, the wear rate of the textured specimen decreased by over 30%. Surface texture improved wheel-rail contact conditions by optimizing debris evacuation, stress dispersion, and interface meshing, thereby enhancing the adhesion coefficient and adhesion stability. Simultaneously, it mitigated three-body abrasive wear and localized stress concentration at the interface, reduced surface plowing and material spalling, and resulted in a smoother wear surface with a milder wear profile. Within the 0~5% slip rate range, the wheel-rail adhesion coefficient of the textured specimen with 5% area occupancy showed an upward trend as slip rate increased, consistently maintaining values above 0.50. Compared to the subsequent decline in adhesion coefficients observed in the non-textured specimen, this sustained increase within the range enhanced adhesion stability at the wheel-rail interface. When the surface texture area occupancy further increased to 40%, the wheel-rail adhesion coefficient of the textured specimen decreased to 0.427. This value was not only significantly lower than the adhesion coefficients of textured specimens at 5%, 10%, and 30% area occupancy but also fell below the adhesion coefficient of the non-textured specimen (0.46). Conclusions: Within the range of texture parameters studied in this study, surface texture exhibited adhesive enhancement only when its area occupancy reached 5%, 10%, and 30%. At 40% area occupancy, texture not only failed to enhance adhesion but actually reduced it. These findings provided theoretical guidance for subsequent design of wheel-rail contact surfaces and improvement of adhesion performance wheel-rail adhesion characteristics; surface texturing; adhesion coefficient; slip ratio; dry operating condition Cheng Jiahao Song Xinxin Zhang Shujun Xu Mengnan Wang Wenjian Guo Jun Zhou Zhongrong PUBLIC https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ dataset Science Data Bank