Maramizonouz, S., Nadimi, S. orcid.org/0000-0002-0971-7089, Skipper, W. orcid.org/0000-0001-8315-2656 et al. (1 more author) (2025) CFD–DEM modelling of particle entrainment in wheel–rail interface: a parametric study on particle characteristics. Railway Engineering Science. ISSN 2662-4745
Abstract
To mitigate and alleviate low wheel–rail adhesion, a train-borne system is utilised to deposit sand particles into the wheel–rail interface via a jet of compressed air in a process called rail-sanding. Britain Rail Safety and Standards Board introduced guidelines on the sand particles’ shape, size, and uniformity which needs to be adhered to for rail-sanding. To further investigate these guidelines and help improve them, this research presents a parametric study on the particle characteristics that affect the rail-sanding process including density, size and size distribution, coefficient of uniformity, and shape, utilising a coupled computational fluid dynamics–discrete element method (CFD–DEM) model. The efficiency of rail-sanding is estimated for each case study and compared to the benchmark to optimise the sand characteristics for rail-sanding. It is concluded that particle size distribution (within the accepted range) has an insignificant effect on the efficiency while increasing particle size or the coefficient of uniformity decreases the efficiency. Particle shape is shown to highly affect the efficiency for flat, compact and elongated particles compared to the spherical shape. The current numerical model is capable of accurately predicting the trends in the efficiency compared to the actual values obtained from full-scale experiments.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2025 The Authors. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | Rail-sanding; CFD–DEM coupling; Numerical analysis; Particle characteristics |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Engineering (Sheffield) > School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 03 Feb 2025 11:33 |
Last Modified: | 03 Feb 2025 11:33 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1007/s40534-024-00365-1 |
Status: | Published online |
Publisher: | Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1007/s40534-024-00365-1 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:222578 |