Wear 258 (2005) 11001108

The effect of hollow-worn wheels on vehicle stability

in straight track
Kevin Sawley , Curtis Urban, Russell Walker
Transportation Technology Center, PO Box 11130, 55500 DOT Road, Pueblo, CO 81001, USA

Received 13 June 2003; received in revised form 28 November 2003; accepted 1 March 2004

Abstract

A significant number of wheels on North American freight vehicles are worn to a hollow shape. Anecdotal evidence is that such wheels
make vehicles more prone to vehicle instability, known as hunting. Through modelling and testing, this paper examines the effect of hollow
wheels on wheel/rail contact geometry and hence on vehicle stability. It is concluded that hollow wheels do not promote hunting, but can
produce vehicle lateral accelerations approaching those caused by hunting. The paper also demonstrates that wheel-to-wheel relative diameter
measurements on the same axle are of great importance when modelling vehicles with measured worn wheels.
2004 Published by Elsevier B.V.

Keywords: Hollow-worn wheels; Vehicle stability; Wheel/rail contact

1. Introduction Although a small number of railways (mainly transit sys-

Almost since the introduction of railways, coned or nearly
coned wheels have been adopted to provide vehicle steer-
ing. The advantages of coned wheels were known by George
Stephenson, who noted in 1821 that: [1]
It must be understood that the form of edge railway wheels is
conical, that is the outer is rather less than the inner diameter
about 3/16 of an inch [4.8 mm]. Then from a small irregularity
of the railway the wheels may be thrown a little to the right
or left, when the former happens the right wheel will expose
a larger and the left one a smaller diameter to the bearing
surface of the rail which will cause the latter to loose ground of
the former but at the same time in moving forward it gradually
exposes a greater diameter to the rail while the right on the
contrary is gradually exposing a lesserwhich will cause the
wheels to proceed in an oscillatory but easy motion on the
rails
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: kevin sawley@ttci.aar.com (K. Sawley),
curtis urban@ttci.aar.com (C. Urban), russell walker@ttci.aar.com
(R. Walker).
tems) use cylindrical wheel profiles, most railways world-
wide use either coned wheels, or near-coned wheels modified
to reduce wheel wear.
Although wheels may start with coned profiles, wear can
remove the coning. The coned profile can be reapplied by ma-
chining, and this is frequently done. But this incurs cost, and
hence there is always pressure to delay machining. This pres-
sure can be intense on railways subject to extreme commercial
competition from, for example, highway freight haulers.
A 1998 survey of wheel profiles in North American freight
service concluded that significant numbers of wheels had hol-
low profiles (see Fig. 1) [2]. For example, from the survey
of approximately 6800 wheel profiles, 14.9% of wheels had
a hollowing greater than 2 mm, while 6.2% had more than
3 mm hollow.
Hollow wheels produce a number of disbenefits (increased
fuel use and rail wear, among other things), and a cost/benefit
analysis study has indicated that the optimum time to remove
wheels (or to re-true them) from service for North American
freight railways is when the wheels reach 3 mm hollow [3].
That is, for wheels of 3 mm hollow and above, the benefits of
removal outweigh the associated costs.

0043-1648/$ see front matter 2004 Published by Elsevier B.V.

doi:10.1016/j.wear.2004.03.058
 K. Sawley et al. / Wear 258 (2005) 11001108
Fig. 1. Illustration of a hollow wheel, and the definition of hollow depth,
H.
Fig. 2. Typical bulkhead flatcar.
This previous study did not explicitly consider the effect
of hollow wheels on the stability of unloaded vehicles on
straight track. Unloaded (or lightweight) vehicles are more
susceptible to a straight track instability known as hunting,
where lateral oscillation of the wheelset is constrained only
by the wheel flanges impacting the rail gage face.
Anecdotal evidence in North America indicates that hol-
low wear encourages hunting of empty or lightweight freight
vehicles. This paper examines, through simulation and test-
ing, the effect of the degree of hollow wear on the straight
track stability of an unloaded bulkhead flatcar, similar to that
shown in Fig. 2. The simulation has also considered the effect
of changes in flangeway clearance (through changes in track
gage and wheel flange wear) on stability.
2. Vehicle instability in straight track
The dynamics of railway vehicles has a long history, as
the quote above indicates. Work up to the early 20th century
is described in Ref. [1] with later work covered in Ref. [4].
Perhaps the first modern approach to vehicle instability was
undertaken by Matsudaira at the Japanese Railway Technical
Research Institute [5,6].
Further extensive work began at British Rail Research,
where Wickens and Gilchrist developed a practical quantita-
tive theory of railway vehicle dynamics [7]. The British Rail
Research work led to the development of the VAMPIRETM
dynamics model. In North America similar work by the As-
sociation of American Railroads led to the NUCARSTM
1101
Fig. 3. Illustration of different types of rolling radius difference graph.
model used in this paper. Other dynamics models are also
available.
Models are necessary to predict the quantitative behaviour
of complex rail vehicles, but the behaviour of a wheelset
depends much on wheel/rail contact geometry and its effects
on contact angle and rolling radius difference (the difference
in rolling radius between the two wheels) as the wheelset is
shifted laterally.
The way rolling radius difference (RRD) changes with
lateral shift can be represented graphically, as shown in Fig. 3,
which shows three forms of RRD graph. On this figure, the
x-axis shows wheelset lateral shift (left to right), the y-axis
shows rolling radius difference (right minus left wheel).
Graph A corresponds to typical new wheels (with a 1:20
taper) on new rails. The central part is linear with a slope of
0.1. This corresponds to lateral shifts that maintain contact on
the wheel tread. The conicity of a wheelset/rail pair combi-
nation is defined as one-half the slope of this central portion
of the RRD graph. The two end parts correspond to lateral
shifts that cause contact between the wheel flange area and
the rail gage corner.
On this graph, when the wheelset shifts to the right, the
right wheel radius increases, causing the wheelset to steer
back to the track center. This is the fundamental steering
mechanism. Conicity is a measure of the restoring effect of
rolling radius difference. As the slope increases, the system
has a high feedbackthe rapid change in rolling radius dif-
ference producing a large torque to yaw the wheelset back to
the track center [8]. Conversely, as the slope decreases, feed-
back becomes less, becoming zero (no steering) for a conicity
of zero (corresponding to cylindrical wheel profiles).
In normal operation on straight track, the wheelset will os-
cillate about the track center. This is shown in Fig. 4, which
gives results from a NUCARSTM simulation of a typical
freight vehicle. This shows the lateral position of the rails
(with track gage reduced to show only the flangeway clear-
ance) and the lead axle lateral displacement, all as a function
of distance. The solid line shows the oscillations at 56 km/h.
At low speeds, oscillations produced by a track irregu-
larity are damped. As speed is increased the decay rate is
decreased, until, at a critical speed, it can become zero and
wheelset oscillations, at a well-defined wavelength, are lim-
ited only by contact of the wheel flanges with the rail [9].
1102 K. Sawley et al. / Wear 258 (2005) 11001108

Table 1
Wheels profiles selected for modelling
Wheelset Hollow wear (mm) Flange weara (mm)
1. AAR-1B NF
L 0 0
R 0 0
2. Moderately worn AAR-1B WF
L 0 0.03
R 0 0.14
3. Hollow wheelset with radius mismatch
L 0.61 2.59
R 0.37 2.83
Fig. 4. Change of lateral lead axle displacement with distance for a freight 4. Hollow wheelset with flange wear
vehicle at 56 km/h (solid line) and 112 km/h (dotted line). L 2.93 8.49
R 3.01 8.99

This is termed hunting, and is shown in Fig. 4 by the dotted
line (112 km/h). A simple analysis of a wheelset restrained
by springs to a frame moving with the wheelset, but unable
to move laterally, showed how energy is transferred from for-
ward motion to lateral motion through the creep forces [10].
For this simple case, it was shown that the critical speed is
inversely proportional to the square root of conicity.
Fig. 3 also shows other possible RRD graphs. Graph B
shows a central slope of approximately zero, and a vertical
offset that causes the graph to pass through the x-axis (equal
wheel rolling radius) at about x = 15 mm. This vertical off-
set arises from the decision to align the two wheel profiles
such that they are coincident at the flange tip.
The default wheel profile input in the NUCARSTM dy-
namics program is to align the wheels vertically so that they
have the same radius at the center of the wheel tread. This
default arises from the use of the original program to study
design-case wheel profiles. However, there is no reason why
worn wheels, especially differentially hollow-worn wheels,
should have the same radius at the tread center. Since wheels
are machined to a constant pattern, and the flange tip makes
no contact with the rail, aligning wheel profiles at the flange
tip appears more realistic. A limited number of worn-wheel
diameter measurements made at the Federal Railroad Admin-
istrations Transportation Technology Center (TTC), Pueblo,
CO, USA support this method of alignment.
On straight track, this vertical offset will cause the
wheelset to run offset towards the left rail. Further, the high
slope at 15 mm will likely cause the wheelset to oscillate
in yaw against the rail.
Graph C is typical of graphs produced when both wheels
are significantly hollow, and shows a negative central slope,
resulting in three intersections with the x-axis. The middle
point is an unstable position. A shift to the left will cause
further leftward movement, and similarly for a shift to the
right. The only stable positions are at x = 16 mm. Hence,
the wheelset will run against one rail (oscillating in yaw)
until a lateral track irregularity gives sufficient force to impel
the wheelset to the other rail.
Through consideration of the RRD graph, the behaviour
of wheelsets can be qualitatively understood.
5. Hollow wheelset with little flange wear
L 4.06 1.55
R 3.93 1.12
NF: narrow flange; WF: wide flange.
a Measured wear loss at the flange gage point.
A positive central slope will give positive steering.
A high positive slope will encourage hunting at lower
speeds. A low slope will give reduced steering in curves.
A positive slope with a vertical offset will cause the
wheelset to run against one rail.
A negative central slope giving three points on the x-axis
will cause the wheelset to run against one rail, or to rebound
between the rails given sufficient lateral track roughness.
3. Selection of wheel and rail proles for dynamics
modelling
A database of wheel profiles [2] was searched to iden-
tify the most common worn wheel profiles in North Ameri-
can freight service, and their mate wheels. Additionally, the
database was searched to identify wheels with significant hol-
low wear, and their mate wheels.
These wheelsets were matched with worn straight rail
pairs to identify five typical RRD graphs for analysis.
Table 1 shows the chosen wheelsets and gives the hollow
wear and flange wear for all 10 wheels. (The rail profile in
straight track has less effect on the RRD graph.) For all these
cases, wheelset wheels were aligned such that their profiles
were coincident at the flange tip. The five RRD graphs and the
possible wheel/rail contact positions are shown in Figs. 59.
4. Vehicle dynamic modelling
4.1. Simulation
The effect of the five wheelset/rail pair combinations on
vehicle stability of an unloaded bulkhead flatcar was mod-
elled using NUCARSTM [11]. The flatcar had ASF Ride
 K. Sawley et al. / Wear 258 (2005) 11001108
Fig. 5. Wheelset 1: new AAR-1B narrow flange wheels on new AREMA
136-RE rail at 1435 mm gage. The RRD graph shows the normal new
wheel/new rail situation (slope = 0.11).
Fig. 6. Wheelset 2: moderately worn AAR-1B wide flange wheels on new
AREMA 136-RE rail with 1448 mm gage. This RRD graph shows a higher
slope than Fig. 5 (slope = 0.26).
Fig. 7. Wheelset 3: hollow wheels with mismatched wheel diameters on
worn rail with 1448 mm gage. The RRD graph has a slope near zero (0.016),
and a vertical offset.
1103
Fig. 8. Wheelset 4: hollow wheels with flange wear on worn rail at 1435 mm
gage. The RRD graph has a negative slope of 0.13.
Control bogies with eight D5 inner coils and eight D5 outer
coils. It had an 18.49 m deck, and was 14.63 m over the bogie
centers. Vehicle weight was 36,832 kg. For any given sim-
ulation, one wheelset from the list in Table 1 was used in
all four axle positions in the vehicle. Before modelling, the
vehicle was tested to provide the mass moments of inertia of
the car body, bogie warp stiffness, and car body/bogie bolster
friction. These are required inputs for the model.
NUCARSTM is a multi-body vehicle dynamics program
that allows detailed simulation of any rail vehicle running on
almost any track. It uses a full non-linear creep theory for
calculating wheel/rail forces. Wheel/rail contact geometries
are calculated from files of measured or design rail and wheel
shapes.
Simulations were done for a vehicle at speeds from 32 to
113 km/h. All simulations were done on dry (0.45 friction)
rail in straight track (length 1800 m) with imposed vertical
and lateral roughness measured at the Transit Test Track at
TTC. North American freight vehicle bogies contain friction
elements; the use of typical rough track introduces small am-
Fig. 9. Wheelset 5: hollow wheels with very little flange wear on worn rail
at 1435 mm gage. Although the wheels are hollow, the RRD graph has a very
high central slope of 2.4.
1104 K. Sawley et al. / Wear 258 (2005) 11001108

Table 2
Summary of vehicle stability simulations
Wheelset Speed at onset of hunting
Car body hunting Axle hunting Flange-to-flange oscillations
1. New AAR-1B NF 105 km/h 97 km/h 88 km/h
2. Moderately worn AAR-1B WF 80 km/h 80 km/h 80 km/h
3. Hollow wheelset with radius mismatch >113 km/h 113 km/h Hugs one rail at 113 km/h
4. Hollow wheelset with flange wear >105 km/h 97 km/h Hugs one rail but can swap to other rail at 105 km/h
5. Hollow wheelset with no flange wear >113 km/h 88 km/h Hugs one rail at 113 km/h

plitude lateral and vertical dynamic response in the simula-
tions. This helps to ensure that these friction elements operate
predictably during modelling.
NUCARSTM can display almost any response, including
displacements; velocities and accelerations (vertical, lateral
and longitudinal) of any position of the model; and wheel/rail
forces and contact positions. For these simulations, the prin-
cipal outputs examined to assess vehicle stability were:
Lateral car body acceleration. Hunting was defined to oc-
cur when the standard deviation of lateral acceleration over
600 m exceeded 0.13 g.
Lateral axle acceleration. The same definition of hunting
was applied as for lateral car body acceleration.
Lateral axle displacement. Hunting was defined to occur
when axle displacement over at least 50% of the simulated
track length allowed flange-to-flange oscillation, such as
that shown by the dotted line in Fig. 4.
shown in Fig. 7 in that there is only one stable position for
the wheelset.
Wheelset 4, which has a negative RRD slope and crosses
the x-axis at three points, shows similar behaviour to wheelset
3. In this case, however, the wheelset has two stable positions
(hard against either rail), and hence it can rebound between
the rails given sufficient lateral force. An example is shown
in Fig. 12, which also shows lateral rail positions and lat-
eral axle displacement. Fig. 12 shows only one rebound, but
simulations with laterally rougher track have shown frequent
rebounds.
Finally, wheelset 5, which has an abnormal positive RRD
slope of 2.4, shows similar behaviour to wheelset 3, in that
it also immediately shifts to the left rail and stays there for
the entire simulation, at all speeds, oscillating in yaw. This
high slope is caused by the shape of the hollow wear on each

For simulations where some degree of hunting occurred,

in most cases the onset speed was consistent between the
three definitions.

5. Results

Table 2 summarizes results for the five wheelset/rail pair

combinations (RRD graphs) studied. The first point to note is
that the three different definitions of hunting lead to very sim-
ilar critical speeds for those wheelset/rail pair combinations Fig. 10. Wheelset 2: lateral axle displacement at 32 km/h. Moderately worn
that allowed hunting. AAR-1B wide flange wheels on new AREMA 136-RE rail.
As expected, the increase in RRD slope produced by mod-
erate wheel wear (wheelset 2, slope = 0.26) reduces the crit-
ical speed found for wheelsets with new wheels (wheelset 1,
slope = 0.11), by 825 km/h depending on the hunting defini-
tion used. Both these wheelsets give track center oscillations
at low speeds and flange-to-flange oscillations at the higher
speeds, as shown in Figs. 10 and 11. Both figures show the
left rail (top line) and right rail (bottom line) as a function of
distance (1800 m), and lateral axle displacement.
Wheelsets 35, which exhibit unconventional RRD
graphs, all show much different stability behaviour.
Wheelset 3, which has a vertically offset RRD graph, shifts
immediately to the left rail at all speeds and continues to Fig. 11. Wheelset 2: lateral axle displacement at 80 km/h. Moderately worn
run against the rail. This is consistent with the RRD graph AAR-1B wide flange wheels on new AREMA 136-RE rail.
 K. Sawley et al. / Wear 258 (2005) 11001108
Fig. 12. Wheelset 4: lateral axle displacement at 105 km/h. Hollow wheels
with flange wear on worn rail at 1435 mm gage.
wheel, and the minimal wheel flange wear. These combine to
ensure that, for almost all wheelset shifts, one of the wheel
flanges is at or near the rail gage corner. This can be seen
from the contact positions shown in Fig. 9. Thus only small
lateral shifts are needed to cause flange contact. If the RRD
slope is a measure of the restoring effect of rolling radius
difference [8], the high slope will hold the wheelset against
the rail. In simple terms, for straight track the RRD slope can
be thought of as a spring, whose stiffness increases with slope,
which pulls the wheelset to the zero rolling radius difference
position.
Because wheelset 5 is almost always in contact with one
rail gage corner, the RRD graph of Fig. 9 is very much like
the graph in Fig. 8 with the central negative slope portion
removed. In fact, Fig. 8 can be transformed into Fig. 9, and
vice versa, simply by changing the flangeway clearance.
The wheelset in Fig. 8 has both wheels hollow and with
appreciable flange wear. As track gage is tightened (to sim-
ulate decreasing flange wear) the central negative slope in
Fig. 8 shrinks and eventually disappears to leave a RRD graph
with very high positive slope. Similarly, the wheelset used for
Fig. 9 has wheels with similar hollow wear to the wheelset
shown in Fig. 8, but with no flange wear. In this case, as track
gage is widened the center part of the RRD graph opens up
to reveal a negative slope area similar to Fig. 8.
From this it is clear that the degree of hollow wear alone
may not be an adequate parameter from which to infer vehicle
stability. Other important parameters are flangeway clearance
(a function of wheel flange wear, track gage, and wheel back-
to-back spacing), relative wheel diameter at the tread center
line, and the detailed shape of the hollow wear.
Table 3 shows the effect of speed on lateral car body
acceleration for the unloaded bulkhead flatcar and the
five wheelset/rail pair combinations studied. At low speed
(32 km/h) all five wheelsets gave approximately the same
low values of lateral car body acceleration, despite the dif-
ferent types of running produced. At the higher speeds, the
maximum accelerations (0.16 and 0.18 g) were produced by
those wheelsets (numbers 1 and 2) that produced conven-
tional hunting.
1105
Table 3
Effect of RRD graph type on car body lateral acceleration
Wheelset S.D. of lateral car body acceleration, g
Low speed High speed
1. New AAR-1B NF 0.015 (32 km/h) 0.180 (105 km/h)
2. Moderately worn AAR-1B 0.015 (32 km/h) 0.160 (80 km/h)
WF
3. Hollow wheelset with radius 0.018 (32 km/h) 0.069 (113 km/h)
mismatch
4. Hollow wheelset with flange 0.034 (32 km/h) 0.061 (105 km/h)
wear
5. Hollow wheelset with no 0.017 (32 km/h) 0.128 (113 km/h)
flange wear
Of the hollow-worn wheelsets, the largest lateral acceler-
ation (0.128 g) is given by the wheelset (number 5) that has
the abnormally high slope. As described, this wheelset runs
hard against one rail, oscillating in yaw. This gives a type
of hunting, in that lateral oscillations are produced, but axle
displacements are much lower than in conventional hunting
(typically only 2 mm). It is possible that the accelerations
produced by this form of instability are attributed to conven-
tional hunting.
The conclusion is that, although hollow-worn wheels can
lead to unusual vehicle instability, they do not necessarily lead
to higher lateral accelerations in unloaded vehicles. Further
work is needed to determine whether these new instabilities
lead to other unwanted maintenance or safety problems.
6. Track tests
A limited number of track tests were undertaken on the
Transit Test Track at TTC using the bulkhead flatcar mod-
elled above. The test vehicle was the last car in a train con-
sisting of a locomotive, an instrumentation coach, and the
test vehicle. Tests were performed according to Chapter XI of
the AAR Manual of Standards and Recommended Practices.
The lowest test speed for each wheel profile configuration
was 48 km/h. Test speed was increased on each subsequent
run until car body accelerations exceeded Chapter XI limits.
Data was digitized at 200 samples per second and low-pass
filtered at 15 Hz. The following measurements were made:
Lateral and vertical acceleration on the deck above each
bogie bolster.
Lateral acceleration at the top of each bulkhead.
Lateral acceleration of the left bearing adapter of each axle.
Lateral suspension displacement, bogie warp, and bogie
rotation.
In the first set of tests the vehicle had new wheels with
AAR-1B profiles. In the second set of tests (configuration
H1) the vehicle had four worn wheelsets, with a maximum
hollow wear of 2.6 mm. All four axles had one hollow wheel
and one non-hollow wheel. The wheelsets were configured
so that each bogie had two diagonal wheels hollow and two
1106 K. Sawley et al. / Wear 258 (2005) 11001108
Fig. 13. Effect of vehicle speed on lateral car body acceleration for vehicle
with new AAR-1B wheels: test and model results.
diagonal wheels non-hollow. In the third set of tests (config-
uration H2), the same worn wheelsets were used, but they
were arranged so that each bogie had one side with hollow
wheels and one side with non-hollow wheels. Configurations
H1 and H2 examined the effect on stability of hollow wheel
placement in a vehicle. Prior to testing, all three cases were
modelled in NUCARSTM .
Test and model results for the effect of speed on the stan-
dard deviation of lateral car body acceleration are summa-
rized in Figs. 13 and 14. For the vehicle with new AAR-1B
wheels, Fig. 13 shows good agreement between the model
and test results. The only difference is that the model results
predict the onset of hunting at a slightly lower speed.
Model and test results showing the vehicle with worn
wheels are less good (Fig. 14). Both model and test results
show the same trend of increasing acceleration with speed,
but the forms of the two sets of data are different. Reasons
for the difference are not known, although there are various
possibilities:
It may be that the vehicle model was not a completely accu-
rate representation of the test vehicle. This is unavoidable,
especially for vehicle designs with many friction elements.
For this reason, dynamics models are generally used to test
the sensitivity of outputs to input changes rather than to du-
plicate test results.
It may be that, for the wheelsets modelled, it was not al-
ways appropriate to match wheel radii exactly at the flange
tip. As can be seen from, for example, Fig. 7, very small
Fig. 14. Effect of vehicle speed on lateral car body acceleration for vehicle
with worn wheels: test and model results.
differences in wheel radius can produce large changes in
the lateral shift position at zero rolling radius difference.
Changes in the lateral shift position have significant effect
on vehicle steering.
All four wheelsets had one non-hollow wheel, and one
wheel hollow from 1.0 to 2.6 mm. These hollow wear val-
ues are relatively low, and it is therefore possible that ve-
hicle behaviour is more dependent on unmeasured bogie
characteristics than on wheel profile shape.
One interesting result is that, for the case studied, both
the test and model results imply that lateral acceleration is
unaffected by wheelset configuration. This suggests that, for
a given vehicle/bogie combination, vehicle stability is more
dependent on wheelset geometry than the position or orien-
tation of the wheelset in the vehicle.
Finally, although measurements of lateral axle displace-
ment were not made, video recordings were made of the lat-
eral position of the lead wheelset with respect to the two rails.
This confirmed the type of behaviour predicted in Fig. 12. On
straight track, wheelsets were seen to run offset toward one
rail, sometimes reaching flange contact, but rarely approach-
ing flange contact on the other rail.
7. Discussion
7.1. Types of instability
This study has shown three types of straight track un-
loaded vehicle instability. The first, commonly observed and
known as hunting, occurs at higher speeds when the vehicle
has new or moderately worn wheels. The second, referred
to here as offset running, is characterized by the wheelset
running hard against one rail, and has been confirmed visu-
ally in track tests. It occurs when the RRD graph is offset
vertically, such that the graph crosses the x-axis at high val-
ues of lateral shift (positive or negative). The third, referred
to here as rebounding, is characterized by the wheelset ran-
domly transferring between the rails and occurs when the
RRD graph has a negative central slope caused by hollow
worn wheels. Minor variations on these three types of be-
haviour can be seen, depending on minor changes in the RRD
graph.
It has also been shown that flangeway clearance is im-
portant in vehicle stability, in addition to hollow wear. For
a wheelset with hollow wear, changes in flangeway clear-
ance can cause the RRD graph central slope to change from
negative to positive. This critically influences stability.
The major factor on flangeway clearance in straight track
is wheel flange wear. Analysis of data from the wheel sur-
vey of Ref. [2] indicates that there is little correlation be-
tween total wheelset hollow wear (sum of both wheels) and
total wheelset flange wear (sum of both wheels) (Fig. 15).
Hence, it is not possible to state, from the degree of hol-
low wear alone, that a given hollow-worn wheelset will
 K. Sawley et al. / Wear 258 (2005) 11001108
Fig. 15. Relationship between total wheelset hollow and total wheelset
flange wear.
have a negative central slope, as opposed to a high positive
slope.
While flangeway clearance is important in the vehicle in-
stabilities that occur with hollow wheels, the limited amount
of modelling described here indicates that lateral vehicle ac-
celerations are likely to be highest when conventional hunting
occurs.
However, hollow-worn wheels can cause high lateral car
body accelerations similar in magnitude to those produced
by conventional hunting. This may be the cause of the belief
that hollow-worn wheels promote hunting. Nevertheless, the
mechanism by which hollow-worn wheels cause lateral accel-
erations is different from classical hunting. In hunting, as the
wheelset rolls along the track, it oscillates in yaw and moves
laterally at a well-defined wavelength within the full flange-
way clearance (see Figs. 4 and 11). In contrast, a hollow-worn
wheelset, while also oscillating in yaw, is likely to run hard
against one rail with minimal lateral displacements from that
position. In this situation, the wheelset can have very high
effective conicity for the very small range of lateral shift pro-
duced (see for example the slope of the RRD graph at +15 mm
lateral shift in Fig. 8). The two mechanisms are different, and
may require different solutions.
Loaded vehicles are less prone to hunting as a result of the
increased damping caused by higher loads. Hollow wheels,
however, can cause much higher positive slopes than moder-
ately worn wheels. These high slopes occur in graphs such
as that shown in Fig. 9, but they can also occur in graphs like
Fig. 7 at the point where the RRD graph crosses the x-axis.
It is possible that vehicle instabilities caused by hollow wear
might persist in loaded vehicles and lead to high lateral ac-
celerations. Limited modelling, not described here, does not
show this to occur in the bulkhead flatcar. Lateral accelera-
tions in the loaded bulkhead flatcar with hollow wheels are
less than those in the unloaded vehicle with new and moder-
ately worn wheels.
7.2. Modelling problems
This study has brought to light a number of problems when
modelling vehicles that have worn wheelsets with measured
wheel profiles.
1107
The first concerns wheel profile rotation. Profile measur-
ing equipment has generally been developed to allow estima-
tion of wear. In this mode, worn profiles are matched against
new profiles to give wear measurements, and small profile
rotation measurement errors are not critical. The survey in
Ref. [2] however, indicated that profile-measuring devices
could introduce small profile angular rotation errors. The cur-
rent study implies that the detailed shape of the hollow wear
could be critical in wheelset stability. Thus, it is believed that
further study is needed to assess the importance of small ro-
tation errors on results of dynamic modelling, in order to set
tolerances on measurement accuracy.
Second, and linked to the first problem, is the question of
profile rotation under load. Modelling at present assumes that
the measured wheel and rail profiles do not rotate. However,
axle bending will cause wheel profiles to rotate, while lat-
eral loads will cause rail profile rotation. The effects of these
rotations on modelling also need investigation.
Finally, the major problem concerns wheel diameter mea-
surement when modelling is done using measured worn
wheels. Changing the location of equal wheel radius can in-
duce almost any type of straight-track wheelset behaviour.
Arranging two worn wheels to have the same radius at the
flange tip will lead to different behaviour than if radii are
matched at the tread centerline or at the end-of-tread. A
1.25 mm difference in wheel tread radius can change the RRD
graph from that shown in Fig. 5 to a shape more like that in
Fig. 7. Because of measurement difficulty, rarely are wheel
diameters measured with accuracy when profiles are mea-
sured. Further work is needed to develop rapid and accurate
wheel diameter measuring equipment.
8. Conclusions
Work described in this paper has examined the effect
of wheel wear on the stability of a typical North Ameri-
can freight vehicle operating on straight track. A range of
wheelsets has been modelled, from new to severely hollow-
worn. Three types of instability, all of which can be inferred
from the RRD graph, have been found. The first is conven-
tional hunting at higher speeds, where the wheelset oscillates
within the flangeway clearance limits. The second is offset
running, where the wheelset runs hard against one rail. The
third is rebound running, where the wheelset oscillates ran-
domly between the two rails due to lateral force inputs from
the lateral track roughness.
It has been shown that the degree of hollow wear is not
the sole indicator of vehicle stability. The detailed hollow
shape and the flangeway clearance are also important. Fur-
ther, it has been shown that changes in flangeway clearance
(through changes in track gage or wheel flange wear) can
change the rolling radius difference slope from negative to
highly positive, and vice versa.
Although hollow wear can lead to unusual instabilities,
for the cases examined here, maximum car body lateral ac-
1108 K. Sawley et al. / Wear 258 (2005) 11001108
celerations occur with conventional hunting. However, hol-
low wheels can give an instability that leads to high lateral
accelerations, and this instability could be mistaken for con-
ventional hunting.
Finally, results of railway vehicle dynamic modelling are
sensitive to apparently minor, and frequently unmeasured,
wheel geometry parameters. Of special concern is that the
behaviour of a wheelset with worn wheels is very sensitive
to the method used to assign wheel radius values. A worn
wheelset with the wheels aligned vertically to give the same
radius at the flange tip can behave much differently if the
wheels are aligned at other positions, such as at the center of
the tread.
Further work is needed to assess the importance of wheel
profile rotation on the modelling of stability, and to develop
accurate and rapid means of measuring wheel diameter as a
model input.
Acknowledgments
This work was funded by the Association of American
Railroads Strategic Research Program and by the U.S. Fed-
eral Railroad Administration. In particular, the authors would
like to thank Ali Tajaddini and Magdy El-Sibaie for their
guidance during this project.
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