Modeling of wheel-rail coupling contact by submodeling technique for elastic wave propagation

Acoustic emission (AE) technique is an emerging nondestructive inspection method for rail detection. But the detection distance for AE sensors is too short and it's infeasible to monitor an entire railway. As a replacing scheme, it's effective to place the sensors in the wheels, which make the study of wave propagation between elastic bodies significant. In this paper, the model of wheel-rail coupling contact is based on finite element (FE) method and the results are compared with theoretical values calculated by Hertz contact theory to ensure the validity of the model. Submodeling technique is adopted in the FE model to obtain a more detailed result. On the strength of the built model, the elastic wave propagation is imported and signals received in the wheel and rail are compared. The results illustrate that the elastic wave generated by the source in the rail has successfully propagated into the wheel and can be detected. The built model can be used for the search of more elastic wave propagation problems.