Development and validation of test rig for experimental analysis of contact behavior between rail wheel-rail and rubber tire-rail in road cum rail vehicles

Present research attempt deals with modeling, structural analysis, fabrication of test rig and experimentations to investigate static contact behavior of 'Rubber Tire-Rail' and 'Rubber Tire-Road' combinations. Conceptual models for the test rig, rail and rubber tire with rim (178/100/R16) are developed and the contact behavior of Rubber tire-Road and Rubber tire-Rail are simulated using FEM. To establish the dimensions of the Test Rig, two stage FEM is performed. In stage-I, contact combinations viz. 'Rubber Tire-Road' and 'Rail wheel-Rail' are studied using ANSYS software without any test rig while in stage-II the same pairs with same simulation environment are analyzed with the proposed test rig. The negligible stresses and deformation in the test rig are indicators of correctness and rigidness of designed test Rig. After finding out the dimensions, the test rig is fabricated and used to perform the experimentations. Numerical and experimental investigations for 'Rubber tire-Rail/Road' combinations are carried into 3 and 2 sub categories respectively. The percentage error in experimental and simulation results are 1.82% for Contact Pressure and 14.37% for Contact Area at 30 KN load and 0.5 MPa inflation pressure. Results indicate that the developed simulated environments and test rig can be used for similar future studies.