Donald Julius Groen Prize Lecture. The WheelRail Interface and Complex Tribology of an Open System

The wheel/rail interface is one of the most complex interfaces tribologists have to deal with. It is an open system with constantly varying contact forces and slip. This means that it presents a wide range of behaviours in terms of friction and wear which at their extremes can compromise train safety. It also means that replicating the behaviour in the laboratory and predicting its behaviour is very difficult. This talk covers work carried out and ongoing to create small-scale experiments to understand fundamental mechanisms; development of modelling tools and applied solutions to for a range of wheel/rail interface issues. The work is focused on low adhesion; wear and rolling contact fatigue and rail grinding case studies.