Contribution
The Acoustics of the Low Thermal Stress Railway Freight Wheel
* Presenting author
Abstract:
Railway wheels are the main source of railway noise. Especially in freight traffic where most of the wagons use block brakes. Block braked wheels are acoustically unfavourable, on one hand because block braking leads to a roughening of the running surfaces and on the other hand because thermal loads caused by this brake type need acoustically unfavourable wheel contours.While disc-braked wheels have a largely symmetrical contour, block-braked wheels have a corrugated structure. In the new Low Thermal Stress railway Wheels (LTS-Sicherheitsrad) contour the wheel disk does not extend below the wheel tread, but underneath the wheel flange. This type of contour not only leads to reduced tensile stress in the area of the wheel rim, but also to reduced sound radiation compared to the standard design of wheel BA 004.Radial modes are in general the most important modes for the running noise of a wheel. In the LTS wheel these modes only show small axial deformations of the wheel web, leading to a lower axial contribution to the wheels overall noise behavior.Calculations of the pass-by levels were carried out using the calculation programs TWINS and STARDAMP according to the standard EN 13979-1.