Parametric Studies on the Fatigue Life Improvement of Passenger Rail Vehicle Axlebox House

Behaylu Alem
2015
Failure of passenger rail axlebox house is mainly due to fatigue caused by repeated cyclic loading which cause catastrophic mechanical failure on axleboxes house and bearing assemblies. The general objective of this thesis is to improve the fatigue life of passenger rail vehicle axlebox house by studding influential geometry and fatigue strength factor parameters on the fatigue life of the axlebox house. Primary data such as bogie type and application, axle load, axle journal size, bearing type
more » ... and size are selected and analysed for modelling the geometry. In addition to primary data, secondary data such as material data, boundary condition, loading data are required for the input of ANSYSI software analysis. Four geometry types are modelled with SolidWorks based on the axlebox house design principles then all models are analysed with FEM ANSYS Workbench 14 fatigue tools under the same non-proportional loading, equivalent dimension and the same material property to investigate which model has a longer fatigue life. This thesis shows by improving the fatigue strength factor can improve the life up to 50% and suitable axlebox house geometry selection can improve the fatigue life up to 70% and it is found that Model II and Model IV have better fatigue life other than other models. Improving the fatigue strength factor and geometry parameters such us geometry model, notches and groves improve the fatigue life of the axlebox house and as the result early failure, operation and maintenance cost, time and risk to catastrophic accident will be minimized. The thesis also recommends that the mass of the heavier models could be farther improved and advanced research on site to be conducted in consideration to environmental factor, microstructure, manufacturing processes, thermal effects, etc since those factors do also have an impact on the fatigue life of the axlebox house.
doi:10.20372/nadre/9554 fatcat:3cvcarw2hre2fexlugc4c6uzxq