Quasistatic Approach to Wheel - Rail Contact Problems with Elastic Graded Materials

Graded materials are generally two - phase composities with continously varying volume fraction. Numerous experiments indicate that used as the coatings attached to the conventional steel body and interfacial zones they can reduce the magnitude of mechanically and/or thermally induced stresses. In this paper the wheel - rail contact problem including friction and wear is considered. The rail is assumed to be covered with a coating. The mechanical properties of the coating material depend on its distance to the rail surface and are governed by power law. In the paper quasistatic approach to solve numerically this rolling contact problem is employed. This approach is based on the assumption that for the observer moving with the rolling wheel the displacement of the rail is independent on time. Finite element method is used as a discretization method. Numerical results are provided and discussed.