Influence of Axle Loads on Rail Wear in Heavy Haul Railways under Different Gross Tonnage

In railway transportation, the rail wear decreases the sectional area, not only reduces the rail’s strength, but also changes the wheel-rail contact geometric. Furthermore, rail wear affects the stability of the trains. This paper presents a rail wear prediction model. First, to know if the prediction model was credible, a circle curve center point rail wear was predicted and the results compared with the field measured value. Then, the authors predicted wear value under different axle loads and gross tonnages through the model. As the results shown: (1) Before the passed gross tonnage exceeds 30MGT, the wear depth increased significantly with the increase of axle load; (2) While the passed gross tonnage reached 60MGT or 90MGT, the wear depth under different axle load hasn’t too much discrepancy; (3) As the gross tonnage continued to increase, reached 120MGT or 150MGT, the wear depth under 23t was the shallowest, while the wear under 21t and 25t were the same.