Research Proposal To: Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

From: Nagvendra Kumar Kanoje Date: 31ST March, 2011 Subject: Research proposal

Proposed Research Topic: Fatigue and fracture analysis of Railway wheel with help of FEM Background: This was an opportunity for me to do my M.Tech project on FEM and Optimisation of Railway Wheel, i did the literature review for both fracture and fatigue behaviour of stresses which are generated during the life of railway wheel due to contact stresses. I did my project in two phase. In first phase 1 studied the behaviour of crack for mode I and mode II. In 2nd phase i tried to reduce the mass of railway wheel with the help of optimization by considering the fatigue initiation life.

Scope: This project will have a good scope particularly in high speed applications of the High speed train. With the help of this project we can reduce the dimension and weight of Railway wheel by considering the life cycle of the wheel. We can also increase the span of life of Railway wheel from day of start to the time when a fatigue crack initiation take place.

Theoretical framework: Method: 1. To conduct a literature review on Fatigue and Fracture.

2. To understand the behaviour of crack under mode I and mode II type of loading . 3. To prepare a model in Abaqus and try to find the stress intensity factor KI and KII. 4. To prepare a model in Ansys and try to find the Fatigue initation life. 5. To prepare an objective function by varying the various size parameters. 6. To solve the Objective function for reducing the mass of Railway Wheel.

Timetable: Prepare proposal by Complete literature review by Complete mathematical formulation of the problem by Complete analysis by Give presentation on Complete final report by 24th July, 2011 31st July, 2011 15th November, 2011 15th April, 2012 30th April, 2012 15th May, 2012

Limitations: There may be certain topics in the literatures which may require me to do some self study. Therefore, the time for literature review may be stretched by a day or two. There may be some software to be used about which I am not very conversant. As a result of this the time for analysis may also be stretched by a week or two.

Delimitations: As I am conversant in analysis software like ABAQUS and ANSYS and MATLAB but not Professional, the software which I may be using for my numerical solution of

the various Optimization equations, therefore the time for analysis of the problem may not be affected.

References [1] Guagliano M., Pau M. (2007),Analysis of internal cracks in railway wheels under experimentally determined pressure distributions, Tribology International,Vol 40,pp.11471160. [2] Yongming Liu, Brant Stratman, Sankaran Mahadevan(2006),Fatigue crack initiation life prediction of railroad wheels, International Journal of Fatigue, Vol 28,pp.747756.