A semi-analytical boundary element method is proposed to solve the sliding wheel/rail contact problem. The objective is to obtain a method more accurate than those generally used in railway dynamics software, while reducing the computational cost compared to Kalker’s variational method, implemented in the CONTACT software and considered the reference method. The sliding contact problem is addressed here. The proposed method applies only to bodies of revolution with parallel axes. Its principle is to assume an analytical form of the shear stresses in the direction perpendicular to the plane of symmetry. This allows for a significant reduction in the number of unknowns. To the authors’ knowledge, such reduction methods have already been proposed for the normal contact, but not for the tangential contact. The proposed reduced formulation provides a good approximation of the traction distribution in the tested cases, compared to the results of the CONTACT software, with a potential saving in computation time compared to the full method.
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Sébès et al. (2026) studied this question.
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