Abrasion Process Modeling of Abrasive Belt Grinding in Rail Maintenance

Considering the contact area state under elastic contact of curved surfaces, an abrasive belt wear process model for rail grinding was established using the Archard equation and Heltzian contact theory to investigate the influence of technological parameters on the belt service life. The curves of wear height and belt service life were calculated through numerical simulations under different grinding forces, belt speeds, running car speeds, rail surface curvature radius and average variances of grit protrusion height. The rationality of the model was proved by comparing the simulational curves with existing experimental results. Simulation analysis illustrates that the wear contour of abrasive belt surface typically presents as a half ellipsoid, and the belt service life reduces exponentially with an increase in both the contact pressure and belt speed, but rise approximate linearly with the growth of running car speed. Taking the 60 kg/m rail as an example, under the same process conditions, the belt wear for grinding the R13 segment is clearly worse than that for both R80 and R300 segments. In the range of allowable rail surface roughness, a large grit protrusion height variance would be helpful to prolonging the abrasive belt service life.