Representing Railway Wheel Profile Using Quadratic NURBS

In order to solve the description of the profile curve in railway wheel profile optimization, quadratic Non-Uniform Rational Basis-spline (NURBS) was used to represent the wheel profile in this paper. By introducing the quadratic NURBS forms of straight lines and circular arcs and method of composing segments, the railway wheel profile was represented by one common quadratic NURBS form. For illustration, LM railway wheel profile used in China was utilized to show the parameter determination process of quadratic NURBS expression. NURBS can effectively solve the description of wheel profile in railway wheel profile optimization. Weights in NURBS curve can be taken as design variables and wheel profile will be changed easily by modifying weights.