A fast and reliable algorithm for the estimation of railway wheel wear

A wheel wear prediction model is a rather complex mathematical tool since it couples several tasks: simulation of vehicle dynamics, local wheel-rail contact model, local wear model, each one bearing its own uncertainties. Moreover, each single task may be solved by different approaches that may be more or less accurate and correspondingly, may require a higher or lower computational effort. This paper presents a fast and reliable wear prediction model that has been validated through comparison with full-scale experimental tests carried out on a single mounted wheel-set under laboratory conditions.