Virginia Tech-Federal Railroad Administration Roller Rig Measurement Capabilities and Baseline Measurements

A detailed description of the Virginia Tech-Federal Railroad Administration (VT-FRA) Roller Rig measurement capabilities, along with the efforts in establishing the accuracy, repeatability, and integrity of the results are presented. The results of a series of baseline tests are also documented in an effort to provide an indication of the type of experiments that can be achieved on the rig. The one-fourth scaled rig is intended to be used for evaluating wheel-rail contact mechanics and dynamics with a high degree of precision. The rail is represented by a roller with a diameter that is five times larger than the wheel, in order to maintain the contact ellipse distortion to less than 10 percent. The primary point of differentiation between this rig and others that have been used in the past or are presently in use is that it is able to measure the wheel-rail contact forces with far greater precision than achieved in the past. The rig is also designed such that it provides a high degree of repeatability in testing, often needed for performing design of experiments accurately. The VT-FRA rig is capable of precisely controlling the lateral positioning of the wheel and rail, rail cant angle, the wheel-rail angle of attack, and the speed of the roller and wheel independently. The latter is intended to provide precise control of the relative speed of the wheel and roller, which amounts to precisely controlling creepage. Beyond presenting the rig’s capabilities, the paper provides a discussion of the initial results from the commissioning of the rig. It is concluded that the rig is ready to be commissioned for studies that are of interest to the practitioners in the rail industry and scientists in the research community.