WHEELSET SUSPENSIONS DESIGNED TO ELIMINATE THE DETRIMENTAL EFFECTS OF WHEEL WEAR ON THE HUNTING STABILITY OF RAILROAD VEHICLES

Traditionally, railroads use wheels having conical wheeltreads, the conicity being 1/20 normally. In practice it has been found that wheeltreads tend to wear hollow. There is also considerable wear to wheel flanges. Such wheel wear changes the effective conicity of the wheeltread and railroad practice has shown that worn wheels frequently excite the vehicle, often to violent oscillations in the lateral plane at certain critical speeds. These undesirable oscillations are generally referred to as hunting. The hunting phenomenon can be explained adequately by the creep theory. A consequent application of this theory leads to the design of wheelset suspensions which result in wheel wear being minimized and distributed evently over the tread surface, thus reducing the tendency for the wheeltread conicity to change with wheel wear. Such suspensions require wheels having profiled wheeltreads of a relatively high effective conicity. In addition, the elastic yaw constraint between wheelset and truck frame must not exceed certain values.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • Presented at the 1976 Joint ASME/IEEE Railroad Technical Conference, Chicago, Illinois, April 6-8, 1976. For the complete volume see RRIS No. 02 131638, Publication 7602.
• Corporate Authors:

  American Society of Mechanical Engineers

  Two Park Avenue
  New York, NY  United States  10016-5990
• Authors:
  • SCHEFFEL, H
• Conference:
  • Presented at the 1976 Joint ASME/IEEE Railroad Technical Conference, Chicago, Illinois, April 6-8, 1976. For the complete volume see RRIS No. 02 131638, Publication 7602.
• Publication Date: 1976

Media Info

• Features: Figures; References;
• Pagination: p. 1-23

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Dynamic tests; Dynamics; Flanges; Force; Hunting (Dynamics); Railroad cars; Railroad rails; Railroad wheelsets; Suspension systems; Train track dynamics; Trucks; Vehicle design; Wear; Wheels
• Uncontrolled Terms: Dynamic analysis
• Old TRIS Terms: Wheel flange forces; Wheel tread design
• Subject Areas: Design; Motor Carriers; Railroads; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00131639
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: American Society of Mechanical Engineers
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: May 14 1976 12:00AM