Polygon Formation Mechanism of Resilient Wheels Based on Lateral Self-Excited Vibration

The safe running of trains is seriously affected by the high-frequency excitation generated by wheel polygonal wear. This paper proposes the polygonal evolution theory and the wear updating strategy of maximum wear cycle for the case of ‘Indivisible’ wear, focusing on the lateral self-excited vibration characteristics of resilient wheels. By combining the wheel/rail rigid-flexible coupling dynamics model and the wheel circumferential wear model, an iteration model of long-term circumferential wear for the resilient wheel is established. The wear mechanism of the resilient wheel is explained by analyzing the evolution process of polygonal wear under different operating speeds. The actual wheel wear is basically consistent with the theoretical calculation results. The results indicate that, due to the combined effect of wheel intrinsic properties and operating conditions, the phase deviation of rolling wear will lead to the occurrence of ‘Indivisible’ wear and affects the polygonization process to some extent when the relationship between wheel rotational frequency and lateral vibration frequency is not approximate multiple.