Evaluation of the effect of flange lubrication on wheel-rail contact forces

The paper illustrates a comparison between contact forces measured on a railway vehicle for Rome’s underground and those calculated with a Multi-Body Simulation code. It would have been quite difficult to obtain correct outputs from simulation without the availability of test results, since the measured coefficient of friction was substantially higher than what was desumed from the literature and the presence of flange lubricant proved to be essential for the dynamic behaviour of the vehicle. The simulations presented were thus carried out for different friction coefficients on flange and tread in order to illustrate the sensitivity of the model to these parameters.