Railway axles are among critical components ensuring safe and efficient train operations. They are particularly susceptible to damage mechanisms such as fretting wear and fatigue. Fretting induced by high contact pressure and microslip between contact surface can significantly deteriorate fatigue strength at the contact edge of the press-fit section. Recent research has been conducted to enhance axle strength and reliability. However, fretting wear or microcrack formation at the wheel-press-fit zone of axles is still an active area of investigation. Accurately analyzing fretting wear is challenging due to its sensitivity to numerous factors such as changes in friction coefficient, influence of wear particles, and selection of an appropriate wear model. This paper aimed to establish a comprehensive analysis method for fretting wear in interference-fitted axles using finite element analysis (FEA) and numerical analysis techniques. Two wear models were applied in simulations: an Archard wear model and an energy-based wear model. Analysis results were compared with experimental data from rotating bending fatigue press-fit specimens. This comparison will help validate the proposed analysis method and assess the effectiveness and accuracy of different wear models in predicting fretting wear in press-fit axles.

This paper presents an improved formulation, to estimate the sliding friction torque of deep groove ball bearings (DGBBs). Running torque of rolling element bearings, is directly associated with heat generation in rotating machines. Among the components of running torque, sliding friction is a major friction source in ball bearings. For DGBBs, sliding friction is dominated by spinning and differential sliding between balls and races. This paper addresses the sliding friction torque components of DGBBs: Spinning friction, differential sliding friction due to the ball rotation, and differential sliding friction due to the ball orbital motion. An efficient and accurate computational method is proposed for the individual sliding friction sources, based on pure rolling lines in the elliptical contact area between the balls and races. The proposed method applies an updating algorithm, for estimating more accurate information about the pure rolling lines. The proposed method was validated in terms of comparison with other methods, and with the empirical formulae provided by a bearing manufacturer. Simulations were also conducted to investigate the impacts of important parameters on the sliding friction torque in DGBBs.