An innovative small-scale testing procedure to study damage in shoe-braked wheels

Abstract

The diffusion of brake-shoe system has made it necessary to study brake–wheel–rail interactions. This study aims to elucidate this topic with an innovative small-scale test rig, the ‘4-contact machine’. A test procedure is designed in which an ER7 steel wheel is coupled with a R260 steel rail and two different brake-shoe materials (cast iron and sintered material). The results show that the 4-contact machine reproduces the effects of wheel–rail–brake shoe contact and damage similar to those observed on a railway wheel at the end of its life, highlighting marked differences in behaviour between the two brake materials.