Design and Application of Thin Flange Wheel Tread Profiles for CRH_(3C) EMUs

Long-term follow-up measurements were made to study the wheel tread wear and its influence to the running behavior of CRH3CEMUs operated on the Beijing-Tianjin Inter-city High-speed Railway Line.The results showed that lateral car-body hunting unstability appeared after some wheels were profiled,and the main reason was that the wheel tread profile conicity was too low.To solve such problems,the new series of thin flange wheel profiles were designed for CRH3CEMUs running on the Beijing-Tianjin Inter-city Railway Line. Three design principles were determined,i.e.,to raise the equivalent wheel-rail profile conicity,to apply uniform flange heights and to connect the flange root and tread contour by the high-order curve.The new wheel profiles were tested and verified by dynamic simulation,trial profile and line operation.Simulation calculations and line measurements show that when the new series of thin flange wheel profiles are adopted with CRH3CEMUs running on the Beijing-Tianjin Inter-city Railway Line,the equivalent wheel-rail conicity is 0.17and the wheel diameter loss is controlled as less than 2mm,the phenomena of carbody unstability disappear,and the CRH3CEMUs bogie stability and running stability satisfy the requirements specified in relevant standards.