Weiterentwicklung und Analyse des Simulationsmodells für plastische Verformung im Rad-Schiene-Kontakt bei unterschiedlich wärmebehandelten Schienenwerkstoffen

Railway rails do not behave as ideally rigid bodies but are subjected to significant mechanical loading due to the passage of trains. Especially during acceleration and braking, high contact stresses arise in the wheel¿rail interface, which lead to plastic deformation in the near-surface material layers. With an increasing number of rolling cycles, these deformations promote the initiation and propagation of cracks. Experimental investigations of such damage mechanisms are commonly conducted using twindisc tests. These experiments allow for a controlled reproduction of slip-affected rolling contact conditions but are associated with considerable time and cost, particularly at high numbers of load cycles. To address these limitations, this work develops a numerical approach based on the finite element method using the commercial FE software Abaqus. An existing simulation, which explicitly resolves only a limited number of load cycles and extrapolates the results to higher cycle counts, is analysed and further extended. Due to the nonlinear hardening behaviour of the investigated rail steels, particular emphasis is placed on assessing the extent to which results obtained in the early stage of loading can be reliably transferred to higher numbers of rolling cycles. The results demonstrate that extrapolating deformation and stress-related quantities from a small number of load cycles does not adequately capture their evolution at higher cycle counts. For a realistic representation of cyclic material behaviour, an explicit simulation of a large number of rolling cycles is therefore required. The extended simulation framework presented in this work provides the necessary basis for such analyses and enables a differentiated assessment of the applicability and limitations of extrapolation approaches in rolling contact problems.