Failure modes analysis of railway wheel

Abstract

In this paper are analysed the wheel failure modes, based on real field data, obtained during a period of a year of operation of freight wagons. The failure modes and their occurrence absolute frequencies are identified and a Pareto analysis is carried out. In the case of the four major failure modes a total time on test transform is performed and the failure probabilistic models are estimated, based on the Weibull distribution. The failure rates of the four failure modes are close to be constant, thus the behaviour of the railway wheel-in its normal life-is close to that of a non-Ageing system. This conclusion is in line with the general theory regarding the behaviour of systems during their normal/useful life.