Original Article

Proc IMechE Part F:

J Rail and Rapid Transit
Modelling of temperatures during railway 2014, Vol 228(1) 93–109
! IMechE 2012

tread braking: Influence of contact Reprints and permissions:

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conditions and rail cooling effect DOI: 10.1177/0954409712465696

pif.sagepub.com

Shahab Teimourimanesh1, Tore Vernersson1,2 and

Roger Lundén1

Abstract
The temperature rise of wheels and blocks due to frictional heating during railway tread braking along with the transfer
of heat through the wheel–rail contact is studied in this paper. In particular, heat partitioning between block, wheel and
rail for stop braking cycles is considered. The wheels are of interest because they are a limiting factor for railway tread
braking systems. Two types of thermal models are employed to investigate the maximum temperatures over the wheel
tread. In a circumferential (plane) model of wheel, block and rail, the heat transfer problem is studied by use of a finite
element formulation of the two-dimensional time-dependent convection–diffusion equation. The hot spot phenomenon
is simulated by introducing a prescribed wheel-fixed contact pressure distribution between wheel and block. In an
axisymmetric (axial) model of wheel, block and rail, the lateral movements of the wheel–rail contact are studied. A
general result is that the cooling effect provided by the rail is important when local temperatures on the tread are
considered, but not when studying bulk temperatures created in a single stop braking event. Furthermore, it is found
from the lateral movements of the wheel–rail contact that slow oscillations result in maximum temperatures over the
wheel tread that are somewhat lower than for travelling on straight track (rolling at the rolling circle).

Keywords
Frictional heating, finite element analysis, heat partition, hot spots, rail cooling effect, railway tread braking, temperature,
wheel–rail contact

Date received: 22 February 2012; accepted: 26 September 2012

Introduction total generated heat entering the wheel and the

Background
Different types of braking systems are used in railway
vehicles. Tread (block) braking is the classic type of
mechanical (pneumatic) braking system and is still in
common use for freight trains. For passenger trains
and metros, tread braking is nowadays often used in
combination with electrodynamic and/or disc brak-
ing. In tread braking, the braking action is obtained
by pressing one, two or four brake blocks (brake
shoes) against the tread of a wheel. There are different
kinds of brake block materials: cast iron, organic
composite materials and sinter materials. An extensive
literature survey on the braking capacity of the wheels
and on important aspects of the tread braking system
such as temperature gradients through wheel rims and
wheel discs, thermo-mechanical behaviour, wheel
tread damage and performance of brake blocks has
been published by the current authors.1
The tread braking action on the railway wheel
causes frictional heating of both wheel and brake
block. The heat partitioning, i.e. the parts of the
block, respectively, is an important aspect.
Furthermore, thermo-elastic interaction between
wheel and block causes an uneven distribution of
heat on the wheel and block surfaces and so-called
banding and hot spots will therefore develop. Hot
spots are regularly spaced superheated areas often
observed on the wheel tread during braking. The ele-
vated temperatures of wheel and blocks are followed
by heat transfer through convection and radiation to
the surrounding. Heat will also be conducted from the
wheel to the rail.
The thermal impact in tread braking systems may
induce wheel tread damage which is an important
issue for wheel manufacturers and train operators.
1
Department of Applied Mechanics, Chalmers University of
Technology, Sweden
2
Epsilon, Gothenburg, Sweden
Corresponding author:
Shahab Teimourimanesh, Department of Applied Mechanics, Chalmers
University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden.
Email: shahab.teimourimanesh@chalmers.se

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94
The damage influences the life cycle cost of railway
wheels and can also be a safety issue. Repeated stop
braking (i.e. the initial speed of the train is reduced
substantially, or the train is brought to rest), e.g. in
metro applications, may cause both a substantial tem-
perature rise in the wheel rim and the creation of hot
spots on the wheel tread. Moreover, excessive drag
(downhill) braking (the potential increase in train
speed is kept constant by braking with an approxi-
mately constant brake force for a relatively long
time), may create a risk of a different wheel failure
mode: global wheel fracture induced by residual stres-
ses when the wheel cools down.
State-of-the-art
The high temperatures due to frictional heat during
braking are an important dimensioning factor for rail-
way wheels. Friction, material properties and the sub-
sequent thermal damage of the contacting bodies are
also influenced by high temperatures.2 There is an
extensive literature that uses both numerical and
experimental techniques to understand the heat trans-
fer behaviour of railway tread brake systems.1,3–8 The
thermal problem involves modelling of both the
block–wheel and the wheel–rail contacts. Of particu-
lar interest is the partitioning of heat in the block–
wheel contact and the transfer of thermal power at
the wheel–rail contact, which influence the build-up
of the maximum wheel and block temperatures.
Experimental research has shown that the thermo-
mechanical interaction between brake block and
wheel tread during braking causes hot spots and
crack arrays on the wheel tread, which evidently are
harmful to the wheel life.3,9–11 When increasing axle
loads and train speeds, and consequently the required
braking power, high temperatures become an import-
ant limiting parameter in the design of tread-braked
railway wheels. Therefore, the study of the effect of
localised cyclic heating created as a result of tread
braking on a wheel tread is of considerable interest.
The mechanism which explains the development of
hot spots during frictional sliding contact is called ‘fric-
tionally excited thermo-elastic instability (TEI)’.12 In
TEI, the contact area is reduced by a thermally induced
distortion which often gives rise to the load being con-
centrated in a relatively small part of the nominal con-
tact area, resulting in high local temperatures. Hot
spots have been observed in experiments on both auto-
motive13 and railway11 braking.
TEIs (and hot spots) are developed during sliding
contact if the sliding speed is higher than a critical
sliding speed, above which small changes in the con-
tact start to grow. For railway wheels, the hot spots
induced on the treads of the wheels have been found
to generate waviness on the surface, which is respon-
sible for rolling noise emitted from the vehicle.14 The
tendency to produce hot spots is related to the mater-
ial parameters of the friction material (and other
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Proc IMechE Part F: J Rail and Rapid Transit 228(1)
factors), where an increased propensity for TEI can
be found for block materials that have a high stiffness,
low conductivity and high coefficient of thermal
expansion.12
Specific to tread braking is the phenomenon that
the frictionally heated wheel tread is in rolling contact
with the rail. This means that for each part of the
tread passing through the wheel–rail contact ellipse,
heat will be conducted from the hot wheel to the cold
rail. A model for heat transfer in wheel–rail contacts
at perfect thermal contact (infinite contact conduct-
ance) was developed by Ertz and Knothe.15
Vernersson and Lundén8 introduced the concept of
a finite thermal conductance at the wheel–rail contact
which may be the result of the existence of a thin
third-body layer in the contact. It has been found in
both numericall and experimental8 studies that the
cooling effect of the rail makes a considerable contri-
bution to the overall cooling of the wheel at elevated
contact temperatures.
Aim of the present study
The objective of this paper is to use a numerical mod-
elling approach to study heat partitioning and the
cooling effect of the rail during railway tread braking.
The finite element (FE) method is used to investigate
the influence of hot spots and banding. Two two-
dimensional models are used, one circumferential
and one axisymmetric. Hot spots with equally
spaced areas in the circumferential direction of the
wheel tread are studied using a plane model. In this
circumferential problem the influences of both hot
spots on the wheel and brake block temperatures
are determined. Banding on the tread, that is, where
localized bands around the wheel tread have an ele-
vated temperature, is studied using an axisymmetric
model. The influence of the rail’s cooling effect is stu-
died using both models. The focus is on the wheel
behaviour since the wheel is often the critical compo-
nent when assessing the thermal capacity of the brak-
ing system. The advantages and drawbacks of the two
models are discussed. The influence of several param-
eters on heat partitioning and temperatures are
demonstrated in numerical examples.
Thermal models
Circumferential model
Geometry. The wheel–block–rail system is represented
in this study by the two-dimensional circumferential
model shown in Figure 1. The wheel is modelled as a
thin ring which represents the wheel tread and a shal-
low surface layer of the wheel rim. The brake block is
modelled as a sector of a ring having the same centre
point as the wheel. The rail is modelled as a rectangle.
Each component of the system is thermally conduct-
ing. Note that the three components all have a
Teimourimanesh et al. 95

relatively thin planar geometry thickness; a fact which
makes a faster analysis possible but does not influence
the results for the studied short periods of time. All
profile parameters pertaining to the wheel–block–rail
system are listed in Table 1.
The formulation of the problem is performed in a
reference frame with the spatial coordinates of the
three components (wheel, block and rail) fixed. This
is an Eulerian description in which the computational
domain (with FE nodes) remains fixed.16 However, a
mass flow rate is introduced for the wheel and rail
parts to represent the rolling motion with constant
rotational speed in the anticlockwise direction of the
wheel ring and a constant translational motion of
the rail.
The transient heat transfer problem can be
described by a conduction–convection (convection–
diffusion) equation of the form
! becomes very high (in the order of 106) for braking
@T
divðKrTÞ ¼ c vrT
þ |ffl{zffl}
|fflfflfflfflfflffl{zfflfflfflfflfflffl} @t
diffusion convection
where div is the divergence vector operator, K ¼ k I
the thermal conductivity matrix (with k being a scalar
and I a unit matrix), r the ‘del’ vector differential
operator, c the specific heat,  the massT density, T
the temperature, v ¼ vx ðx, yÞ, vy ðx, yÞ the velocity
vector of the spatial points (x , y) and t time. The
equation is applied separately for each of the three
bodies. Note, however, that the heat conduction equa-
tion for the brake block has no convection term.
No convection or radiation of heat to the sur-
roundings is considered which means that all surfaces,
except for the contact interfaces are adiabatic
(@T/@n ¼ 0, n denoting the coordinate perpendicular
to the domain surfaces). When introducing a numer-
ical FE solution, with typical mesh size l which is a
characteristic element length in the heat flow direction
defined by Yu and Heinrich 17,18 the Péclet number
cvl
Pe ¼ ð2Þ
k
applications. A conventional Galerkin approach
ð1Þ would then render spurious node-to-node oscillations.
A solution to this problem is the streamline diffusion
method introduced by Brooks and Hughes.19
The commercial FE package Abaqus/Standard was
used in this study.20 This software implements the
Petrov–Galerkin method in the solution of the multi-
dimensional time-dependent convection–diffusion
equation as described by Yu and Heinrich.17,18 The
model shown in Figure 1 was tested extensively by
studying the tread temperature history for one block
passage and rail cooling effect considering finite ther-
mal conductance at contact. Comparison with an ana-
lytical solution for a semi-infinite solid subjected to a
prescribed heat flux at the surface of the tread as dis-
cussed in Carslaw and Jaeger21 was done and also
used to find a suitable mesh density. The chosen
mesh typically gave results that closely matched the
analytical results for the case of constant heat flux
along brake block contact.
The average heat flux at the contact interface of the
wheel–block can be defined by

Figure 1. Schematic diagram of wheel, block and rail where Qbrake

qbrake ¼ ð3Þ
frictional heat with fluxes qw and qb and rail cooling with flux qr Hb Lb
are indicated.

Table 1. Reference data for the wheel–block–rail system in the circumferential model.

Profile parameter for wheel and block Semi-axes of wheel–rail contact ellipse

Radius of wheel Rw ¼ 420 mm In rolling direction a ¼ 6.31 mm

Radius of rail head Rr ¼ 300 mm In lateral direction b ¼ 5.04 mm
Block length Lb ¼ 320 mm
Block thickness Bb ¼ 2.01 mm Material properties for wheel and rail
Block width Hb ¼ 80.0 mm Young’s modulus E ¼ 210 GPa
Wheel thickness Bw ¼ 6.40 mm Poisson’s ratio  ¼ 0.300
Rail thickness Br ¼ 0.190 mm Coefficient of friction  ¼ 0.300

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96 Proc IMechE Part F: J Rail and Rapid Transit 228(1)

where Qbrake is the thermal power generated during

braking, Hb is the block out-of-plane width and Lb
the block length.
Since the hot spots are stationary with respect to
the wheel, the block–wheel contact pressure was mod-
elled as repetitive hot zones which are spatially fixed
to the wheel.
Three different pressure distributions between
wheel and block were used: constant, sinusoidal and
square as shown in Figure 2. It should be noted that
the width and maximum pressure of the square wave
were chosen to give the same mean pressure over one
period.
A sinusoidal fluctuation of contact pressure
Figure 2. Pressure distributions between wheel and block.
with amplitude pm (with 41) and a wavelength
of hot spots  ¼ p D/N fixed on the wheel tread
was studied, where N is the number of waves
around the wheel circumference, this means that the
block–wheel contact pressure was assumed to vary
according to
p ¼ pm þ pm sinð’Þ ð4Þ

where pm is the mean contact pressure (units: N/m2)

and the second term represents the pressure perturb-
ations for which  is a factor that determines the pres-
sure amplitude and ’ is the argument for pressure
fluctuations fixed on the wheel according to
ðR  vtÞ2
’¼
 contact with thermal contact conductance hwr between con-
It was assumed that Coulomb’s law of friction is
valid with a constant coefficient of friction  and slid-
ing velocity v. The frictional dissipation rate (per area
unit) in the contact is then proportional to the brake
pressure
qbrake ¼ vp
It was assumed that the frictional power dissipated
during braking was transformed into heat over the
common area of contact between the block and
wheel and that the total heat generated during brak-
ing was partitioned between wheel and block at their
contact interface.
Heat partitioning. In this paper, the influences of con-
tact conditions on the local heat transfer between two
bodies, wheel–block and wheel–rail, are analysed. A
mathematical model is needed to explain the thermal
aspects of bodies in contact. The third-body approach
is a suitable concept that can be used to explain the
temperature jump at the interface between two con-
tacting bodies. Godet22,23 defined the third-body in a
material sense as an interface zone between contacting
surfaces formed by different compositions of wear
debris and contaminants. A heat partitioning model
based on the generation of heat in the third-body was
proposed by Laraqi.24 The model considers that the
Figure 3. Schematic diagrams of the heat partitioning in a unit
surface area formed by a block and wheel in contact. Of the
total generated heat flux qbrake, the flux qw goes to the wheel
and qb goes to the block. Surface temperatures are Twcont and
Tbcont for wheel and block, respectively. Heat generation in the
ð5Þ third body with heat resistances Rb and Rw (left). Wheel–rail
tacting surfaces (right).
generated heat is partitioned via two thermal resist-
ances, see Figure 3.
As shown in Figure 3 (left), the heat flux
qbrake ¼ qw þ qb generated in the wheel–block contact
ð6Þ is partitioned between two solids as.
Tcont  Tcont
w Rb
qw ¼ b
þ qbrake ð7Þ
Rw þ Rb Rw þ Rb
Tcont  Tcont Rw
qb ¼ w b
þ qbrake ð8Þ
Rw þ Rb Rw þ Rb
In these equations, the first and second terms show
the influence of temperature difference and the local
heat partitioning, respectively.
The model for the wheel–rail contact (rail cooling
effect), as for the wheel–block model, assumes that a
third-body layer existes between the wheel and rail
and that a finite thermal conductance hwr occurs at
the contact point of the surfaces. The third-body layer
can be physically interpreted as materials present in
the wheel–block–rail environment such as worn par-
ticles from the wheel, block or rail, lubricants, sand,
etc. It should be noted that in this paper the rail body
is considered to be a heat sink. Therefore, the heat
flux leaving the wheel must be the same as the heat
flux entering the rail. This property and considering

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Teimourimanesh et al.
Figure 4. The FE models of wheel, brake block and rail. Trailing edge of wheel–block contact is shown in the right picture. Thin rail is
illustrated below the wheel body in the left picture.
Figure 5. Calculated surface temperatures of wheel and rail
along the centre of the Hertzian contact patch for thermal
contact conductance hwr ¼ 3  106 W/m2 C. Wheel and rail
temperatures before contact were 100 C and 0 C, respect-
ively. Half-length of contact patch was a ¼ 3.15 mm and speed
of train 80 km/h. Here is the dimensionless length coordinate
along the wheel and rail contact. The common wheel and rail
temperature for hwr ¼ 1 as calculated using analytical method
is included for comparison.
the same material for the wheel and rail lead to the
same amount of temperature increase of the rail along
the contact as the temperature decrease at the corres-
ponding position of the wheel tread. Figure 3 (right)
illustrates the wheel and rail contact including the
third-body layer indicating the finite thermal conduct-
ance at the interface. The heat transfer between the
wheel and rail surfaces is modelled as
qw ¼ qr ¼ hwr (Tw  Tr). Here qw(¼qr) is the heat flux
per unit area flowing between corresponding points
on the two surfaces, hwr is the contact conductance
which is taken as being constant (inverse of thermal
contact resistance) and Tw and Tr are the surface tem-
peratures (at the studied point of contact).
Figure 4 shows the Abaqus FE mesh for the block–
wheel and wheel–rail contacts. Four-node isopara-
metric quadrilateral elements were used to create the
FE models. It should be noted that the temperatures
in the wheel–rail contact surface are significantly
influenced by the mesh density towards the contact
surface. Therefore, the numerical results were
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97
Figure 6. Axisymmetric FE model of wheel and brake block.
compared with an analytical solution for the known
temperature on the surface of a film on top of a semi-
infinite solid (so-called Robin boundary condition5,25)
to find an acceptable mesh density. Figure 5 shows the
simulated temperatures in the wheel–rail interface for
stop braking with a composite brake block and con-
stant brake pressure at 177.8 kW and 80 km/h using a
1Bg configuration (one block per wheel).
According to Vernersson and Lundén8, a value of
the thermal contact conductance of
hwr ¼ 3  106 W/m2  C, as used in the model, means
that the heat transfer from wheel to rail is 90% of
the value for perfect thermal contact as calibrated
from a field test.
The presented FE model was used to study the heat
partitioning between wheel, block and rail when heat
was generated between block and wheel for a pre-
scribed contact pressure. The influence of different
parameters such as brake block material, block con-
figuration and pressure perturbation are discussed in
the section ‘Parametric study’.
Axisymmetric (axial) model
In this section the wheel–block–rail system is repre-
sented by an axisymmetric model, see Figure 6. This
means that variations in the circumferential direction
are not considered and also only average temperatures
with respect to the circumferential direction are
assessed. The model was developed and calibrated
with a focus on freight traffic and can account for
not only wheel–block and wheel–rail heat partition-
ing, but also convection and radiation cooling of
exterior surfaces.5,7,8 The wheel and brake block
were modelled by use of an axisymmetric assumption
98
Figure 7. Assumed pressure variations with  ¼ 1 for the study of banding during stop braking.
which required the block’s thermal properties to be
modified to account for the actual length of the
block. The influence of the cooling effect of the rail
on the wheel tread was (in the present section) imple-
mented by use of a convection-type boundary condi-
tion. The wheel to rail heat transfer coefficient was
calculated assuming that the thermal contact conduct-
ance between wheel and rail (see also the previous
section ‘Heat partioning’) was hwr ¼ 3  106 W/m2oC,
meaning that the heat transfer from wheel to rail is
90% of the value for perfect thermal contact.8
The influence of rail cooling was implemented over
a (axial) width on the tread of 9.54 mm which is close
to the value calculated by Hertzian contact theory
assuming a rail head radius of 300 mm (UIC 60 rail
head profile). Thus, in the chosen axisymmetric
model, the area exposed to the cooling from the rail
corresponds to a band around the wheel circumfer-
ence. Also, the axial position of the simulated wheel
and rail contact, which on straight track is at the roll-
ing circle, was varied over the tread. Both the situ-
ation when the contact moves periodically over the
tread (assumed travel on curved tracks) and the case
when the contact has a stationary position shifted
away from the rolling circle were studied. The latter
case is somewhat academic (or could result from
travel along a long curve) but is presented to give an
insight into the nature of the cooling effect of the rail.
The influence of the cooling effect of the rail on the
heat partitioning and wheel temperatures was studied
by use of simulated drag braking cycles (constant
brake power over a long duration) which steadily
pushes the wheel tread towards elevated temperatures.
The choice to study drag braking cycles can be seen as
a simplification of a scenario where a train is travel-
ling on a route with multiple consecutive short stops
as for a metro train with short distances between the
stations.
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Proc IMechE Part F: J Rail and Rapid Transit 228(1)
The influence of banding during braking was stu-
died by introducing stop braking cycles on a wheel
with an elevated temperature, where the brake heat
input is non-uniform in the axial direction. The heat
generation was assumed to result from a block–wheel
contact pressure varying according to distributions
given by (cf. circumferential model and equation (1))
y  y 
p ¼ pm þ pm cos
t 0
þn ð9Þ
B
where pm is the mean contact pressure (units: N/m2)
and the second term represents the pressure perturb-
ations for which  is a factor that determines the pres-
sure amplitude. Furthermore, yt is the coordinate
starting from the field side of the rim, y0 is the dis-
tance from the field side of the rim to the brake block,
B is wheel–block contact width and n was chosen to
have a value of zero or one to give the variations in
Figure 7. The brake’s heat flux at the contact was
calculated in accordance with equation (6) where for
stop braking the speed decreases linearly from its
maximum down to zero.
Parametric study
Plane (circumferential) model
It is known from previous studies, see Teimourimanesh
et al.,1 that the temperature and heat partitioning
during braking depend on several variables. In the pre-
sent studies, a baseline was introduced and the devi-
ation in results when different variables are varied was
studied.
In the baseline the wheel–block pressure distribu-
tion varies in a sinusoidal manner and the chosen set
of parameters is given in Tables 1 and 2. The stop
Teimourimanesh et al. 99

Table 2. Baseline data for the parametric studies.

Speed v ¼ 80.0 km/h Block material Composite

Analysis time t ¼ 0.594 s Initial wheel temperature Tw0 ¼ 100 C
Axle load 2 m ¼ 16.0 tonnes Initial block temperature Tb0 ¼ 100 C
Retardation a ¼ 1 m/s2 Initial rail temperature Tr0 ¼ 0 C
Block configuration 1Bg

temperatures created during railway tread braking.

Table 3. Material data for wheel, brake blocks and rail: specific
heat cp, thermal conductivity k, mass density  and thermal
diffusivity
. area. The calculated temperatures at the trailing
cp k 
edge for the baseline are given in Figure 9. Note the
Material (J/kg  C) (W/m  C) (kg/m3) (106 m2/s)
Wheel and 460 51.9 7850 14.4
rail steel
Compositea 1500 5.0 2670 1.25
Sinter 710 64.6 4670 19.5
Cast iron 520 48 7100 13.0
a The maximum wheel and block temperatures, Tmax
Baseline case.
braking power is Q ¼ mav ¼ 8000 kg  1 m/s2  80/
3.6 m/s ¼ 177.8 kW and the time considered in the
analysis corresponds to five full revolutions of
the wheel in all the simulations. Temperature-
independent material data from Vernersson7 were
used for wheel and rail and for brake blocks made
from cast iron, sinter and composite materials at
0  C, see Table 3. The wheel–block pressure distribu-
tion follows equation (4) with amplitude factor  ¼ 1
and  ¼ 164.9 mm (N ¼ 16), see Figure 2. (Note that
the hot spot wavelength for the different brake block
materials will be reported in Table 6.)
The wheel, block and rail surface temperatures
were studied globally by observing the temperatures
around the wheel circumference, along the brake
block and at the wheel–rail contact interface immedi-
ately after every wheel revolution. Also, the history of
local surface temperatures was analysed at interesting
positions, such as at the trailing edge of the brake
block, to find the maximum temperatures locally.
Finally, to understand the heat partitioning globally
and locally, the power entering wheel, block and rail
and also the partitioning of heat flux at certain loca-
tions of the wheel–block contact were studied.
Wheel tread temperatures around the circumfer-
ence immediately after every revolution are illustrated
in Figure 8. Note the influence of the heat input at
block passage (increasing temperature for distances
between 0 and 0.32 m) and of the cooling effect of
the rail (prescribed temperature at the wheel–rail con-
tact at distance 2.0 m). The number of waves in the
plots with sinusoidal perturbation shows the fixed
number of hot spots around the wheel circumference.
The trailing edge of the wheel–block interface
is the critical sector in terms of determining the
The trailing edge is the separating edge of the two
moving surfaces when the tread leaves the contact
slow increase in temperature at the block. A decrease
of the peak and trough temperatures of the wheel
tread in every revolution, caused by the cooling
effect of the rail, can be observed. The reason for
this behaviour is that the wheel and brake blocks
have an initial temperature of 100  C whereas the
rail temperature is 0  C.
w
and Tmaxb , are defined as the highest temperatures at
the wheel–block trailing edge at the last revolution.
The minimum wheel temperature is the lowest surface
temperature of the wheel at the last revolution. When
the rail is present this will occur in the wheel–rail con-
tact area, and when there is no cooling effect from the
rail it occurs before the leading edge. The heat parti-
tioning is introduced as a percentage with respect to
the total braking power. Since the model is two-
dimensional, it should be noted that the heat partition
to the rail can be defined in two different ways; one is
the ratio Qr/Qbrake between the power that goes to rail
and total generated braking power and the other
when the power to the rail is scaled by an area cor-
rection factor. The reason for this scaling effect is that
the plane model has a unit out-of-plane width but the
wheel–block and wheel–rail contact patches have
much smaller, but different, widths. Thus, a reduced
cooling effect of the rail Qred r ¼ ðb=2Hb ÞQr can be
calculated which in an approximate way considers
the elliptical wheel–rail contact as a function of the
out-of-plane thickness of the brake block. The heat
partitions to the wheel, block and rail (Qw, Qb and Qr)
were calculated based on the mean value of the last
heat cycle (i.e. the last period of the brake pressure
wave).
Table 4 shows that the maximum block tempera-
ture does not significantly change for the considered
contact pressure distributions and cooling effect of the
rail, whereas the maximum and minimum wheel tem-
peratures change significantly. It can be seen that the
heat entering the wheel at the block contact remains
almost unchanged in the four studied cases, but that
the cooling effect of the rail takes a large part of the
heat (22%) for the part of the tread passing through
the contact. However, when looking at the reduced
value, which accounts for the small width of the

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100 Proc IMechE Part F: J Rail and Rapid Transit 228(1)

Figure 8. Calculated wheel tread temperatures along the circumference after every revolution when stop braking with composite
brake block (1Bg) at 177.8 kW and 80 km/h. Sinusoidal pressure perturbation (up) and constant pressure (down). Baseline case is
shown in the upper left figure. Note, for identification of curves, that temperature increases with each revolution.

wheel–rail contact ellipse, it is clear that the cooling
effect of the rail is negligible when analysing bulk
wheel temperatures.
The influence of different initial wheel and block
temperatures was investigated. The results for initial
temperatures of 0  C and 300  C both for the wheel
and block show that the heat partition between the
two bodies remains relatively unaffected. The power
from the wheel into the rail increases from 22% to
about 55% as the initial temperature is increased
and is reduced to about 6% as the initial temperature
is decreased.
The influence of train speed, wheel diameter,
wheel–rail contact semi-axis and pressure amplitude
is shown in Table 5. It should be noted that the alter-
native speed of 40 km/h gives a longer time for five
revolutions and that the braking power is decreased
by 50%, resulting in lower temperatures for both
wheel and block. The alternative wheel diameter
gives a wheel–rail contact semi-axes a ¼ 5.93 mm and
b ¼ 5.15 mm which causes an increase in the maximum
wheel temperature (baseline case: a ¼ 6.31 mm,
b ¼ 5.04 mm). The alternative pressure amplitude
was decreased to  ¼ 1/3 in comparison with the ref-
erence case which means a more even distribution of
temperatures on both wheel and block. It is interest-
ing to note that the heat partitioning between the
wheel and block is only marginally changed by the
alternative cases. However, the partition into the rail
is increased for the lower train speed which is
explained by the lower braking power. Furthermore,
the power to the rail is decreased by the smaller wheel

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Teimourimanesh et al. 101

Figure 9. Calculated wheel tread and brake block temperatures (baseline) at the wheel–block trailing edge when stop braking with
composite brake block (1Bg) at 177.8 kW and 80 km/h.

Table 4. Calculated temperatures for the two contact pressure variation types. Summary of the calculated heat entering the wheel,
block and rail at the end of analysis for the case with and without cooling effect of the rail when stop braking with composite brake
block (1Bg) at 177.8 kW and 80 km/h.

Temperatures Heat partitioning

Pressure Twmax ( C) Tbmax ( C) Twmin ( C) Qw/Qbrake (%) Qb/Qbrake (%) Qr/Qbrake (%) Qred
r /Q
brake
(%)

Sinusoidala 253 328 65.4 83.6 16.4 22.2 2.20

Constant 175 326 67.9 83.6 16.4 22.0 2.18
Sinusoidal 265 329 101 83.4 16.6 –b –
Constant 185 328 133 83.4 16.6 – –
a
Baseline case.
b
The cooling effect of the rail is not implemented.

Table 5. Temperatures and calculated heat levels entering the wheel, block and rail at the end of the analysis of the four alternative
cases when stop braking with composite brake block (1Bg).

Temperatures Heat partitioning

Cases Twmax ( C) Tbmax (C) Twmin ( C) Qw/Qbrake (%) Qb/Qbrake (%) Qr/Qbrake (%) Qred
r /Q
brake
(%)

Reference 253 328 65.4 83.6 16.4 22.2 2.20

Speed v ¼ 40 km/h 207 260 63.3 84.6 15.4 29.1 2.88
Wheel diameter D ¼ 740 mm 256 315 65.9 83.3 16.7 21.4 2.18
Smaller semi-axisa a ¼ 3.154 mm 259 328 70.7 83.5 16.5 11.0 5.93
Lower amplitude  ¼ 1/3 201 327 68.0 83.6 16.4 22.2 2.20
a
The semi-axes of the wheel–rail contact ellipse is calculated using the different rail head radius Rr ¼ 12.12 m.

diameter which means a smaller semi-axis of the
wheel–rail contact ellipse in the rolling direction of
5.93 mm.
The choice of brake block material is of great
importance for the performance of railway tread
brakes. This paper investigates how the most
common brake block materials, organic composite,
sinter and cast iron, influence the temperature and
heat partitioning behaviour. Two important factors
when considering the three different braking materials
considered in this paper are the wavelength of the hot
spot pattern which these materials induce3 and also
the thermal resistances Rw and Rb between the wheel
and block as given in Vernersson7, see Table 6.

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102 Proc IMechE Part F: J Rail and Rapid Transit 228(1)

Another important aspect is the brake block config-
uration which can strongly affect both temperature and
heat partitioning. Figure 10 shows the wheel tread tem-
peratures at the end of every revolution for the baseline
case but with a 2Bg configuration (left) and also with
constant brake pressure (right), also here for the 2Bg
configuration. Comparison with Figure 8 (left) shows
that the temperatures are generally reduced by the 2Bg
configuration (two opposite blocks per wheel).
Table 6. Hot spot wavelengths and values of the thermal
contact resistances Rw and Rb for the cast iron, sinter and
composite brake blocks.
Block material Cast iron Sinter
Hot spot wavelength (mm) 62.8 165 165
Rw (m2 C/W) 440  10-6 250  106 170  106
Rb (m2 C/W) 350  10-6 570  106 720  106
The results listed in Table 7 show that composite
brake blocks create higher wheel temperatures than
the other studied materials. The reason for this behav-
iour is a combination of the material properties and
also thermal resistance values in comparison with
sinter and cast iron. The lower temperatures for the
2Bg block configuration are caused by the doubled
braking contact area. The heat partitioning to the
wheel follows the same pattern as the wheel tempera-
tures. The case of a shorter hot spot wavelength of
82.5 mm was also studied (not in the table) for com-
posite and sinter brake blocks but no significant influ-
ence on the results was found.
The heat partitioning model, see equations (6) and
Composite (7), indicates that the thermal resistances of the wheel
and block play an important role. The model needed
to be tested using reduced thermal resistances for the
available materials. Thus, the thermal resistances in
Table 6 were scaled by a factor 0.001 and the obtained

Figure 10. Calculated tread temperatures along wheel circumference immediately after each of the five revolutions under stop
braking with composite brake blocks (2Bg) at 177.8 kW and 80 km/h. Assumed sinusoidal-varying block-tread pressure perturbation
(left) and constant pressure (right).

Table 7. Calculated temperatures and heat partitions for different brake block materials and block configurations.

Temperatures Heat partitioning

Material Configuration Twmax ( C) Tbmax ( C) Twmin ( C) Qw/Qbrake (%) Qb/Qbrake (%) Qr/Qbrake (%) Qred
r /Q
brake
(%)

Composite 1Bg 253 328 65.4 83.6 16.4 22.2 2.20

Composite 1Bg (left)a 252 328 68.3 83.6 16.5 23.5 2.32
Composite 2Bg 212 216 66.8 83.2 16.9 22.8 2.26

Sinter 1Bg 231 304 63.4 72.1 27.9 21.3 2.11

Sinter 2Bg 195 203 64.7 71.8 28.3 21.9 2.16

Cast iron 1Bg 183 441 59.1 49.9 50.1 19.7 1.95
Cast iron 2Bg 160 272 60.3 49.7 50.3 20.0 1.98
a
The brake block located on the left side of the wheel whereas baseline has block on right side, see Figure 1.

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Teimourimanesh et al. 103

Table 8. Calculated temperatures and heat partitions for different brake block materials, brake pressure and thermal resistances.
The constant and sinusoidal brake pressures and thermal resistances based on Table 6 have been tested.

Temperatures Heat partitioning

Resistances Twmax Tbmax Twmin Qw/Qbrake Qb/Qbrake Qr/Qbrake Qred

r /Q
brake

Material Pressure scaling factor ( C) ( C) ( C) (%) (%) (%) (%)

Composite Constant 1 175 326 67.9 83.6 16.4 22.0 2.18

Composite Constant 0.001 187 187 70.8 95.3 4.67 23.0 2.28
Composite Sinusoidal 1 253 328 65.4 83.6 16.4 22.2 2.20
Composite Sinusoidal 0.001 196 196 73.1 95.9 4.06 23.1 2.28

Sinter Constant 1 163 302 65.3 72.2 27.8 21.2 2.10

Sinter Constant 0.001 187 188 69.7 96.0 4.00 22.7 2.24
Sinter Sinusoidal 1 231 304 63.4 72.1 27.9 21.3 2.11
Sinter Sinusoidal 0.001 198 196 72.2 96.5 3.54 22.7 2.25

Cast iron Constant 1 141 440 60.2 49.9 50.1 19.5 1.93
Cast iron Constant 0.001 186 188 69.5 95.1 4.87 22.6 2.24
Cast iron Sinusoidal 1 183 441 59.1 49.9 50.1 19.7 1.95
Cast iron Sinusoidal 0.001 189 190 68.5 95.3 4.75 22.6 2.24

Table 9. Calculated temperatures and heat partitions for different brake block materials and pressure distributions.

Temperatures Heat partitioning

Material Pressure Twmax ( C) Tbmax ( C) Twmin ( C) Qw/Qbrake (%) Qb/Qbrake (%) Qr/Qbrake (%) Qred
r /Q
brake
(%)

Composite Sinusoidal 253 328 65.4 83.6 16.4 22.2 2.20

Composite Square (/5) 492 325 50.2 83.6 16.4 22.5 2.23
Composite Square (/10) 887 320 50.2 83.6 16.4 23.0 2.28

Sinter Sinusoidal 231 304 63.4 72.1 27.9 21.3 2.11

Sinter Square (/5) 435 302 50.1 72.2 27.9 21.6 2.14
Sinter Square (/10) 774 297 50.1 72.2 27.9 22.1 2.19

Cast iron Sinusoidal 183 441 59.1 49.9 50.1 19.7 1.95
Cast iron Square (/5) 310 440 50.3 49.9 50.1 20.2 1.99
Cast iron Square (/10) 493 432 50.3 50.0 50.1 20.6 2.04

results for temperature and heat partitioning are listed
in Table 8. It can be seen that a reduction in the thermal
resistance level increases the heat partitioned into the
wheel body. However, the wheel–block pressure distri-
butions only marginally influence the heat partitions.
The temperatures and heat partitions for hot spots
obtained using a square wave instead of a sinusoidal
wave are listed in Table 9. The idea is to have more
concentrated pressure and areas of more elevated tem-
peratures. The square wave amplitude was chosen to
give the same average braking power, see Figure 2. All
other parameter values were as for the baseline case. It
can be seen that the temperature distributions are
strongly affected by the calculated pressure but the
heat partitioning is more or less unaffected.
Axisymmetric (axial) model
The axisymmetric model was used to investigate the
influence of the cooling effect of the rail on the wheel
tread temperatures and banding. The cooling influ-
ence of the rail was studied for two situations: first,
the contact has a stationary axial position on the tread
and second, the contact moves periodically over the
tread to resemble travelling on curved track. A simu-
lated situation corresponding to drag braking power
Q ¼ 30 kW (to one wheel) at 100 km/h for 30 min
(long-period drag braking) was studied. The brake
block configuration was 2Bg and composite brake
block material was assumed.
The influence of the cooling effect of the rail was
investigated when the wheel–rail contact was located
at different stationary positions ranging from a position
towards the field side (yt ¼ 16 mm) to a position
towards the flange side (yt ¼ 84 mm). Figure 11 shows
the wheel tread temperature with respect to time when
the wheel–rail contact position is at the rolling circle.
The influence of the cooling effect of the rail can be
clearly seen as a local lowering of the temperature at
yt ¼ 65 mm. The maximum tread temperature at the

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104 Proc IMechE Part F: J Rail and Rapid Transit 228(1)

Figure 11. Calculated wheel tread temperature when the wheel–rail contact is located at the rolling circle (65 mm from the field
side of the wheel). The maximum temperature is 241 C and located 31.3 mm from the field side.

Figure 12. Calculated maximum tread temperatures for different wheel–rail contact positions along the wheel tread. The result
when the wheel–rail contact is located at the rolling diameter 65 mm from field side is shown by an arrow (left). Mean tread
temperature for a wheel–rail position at the rolling circle as well as the extreme cases that show the highest and lowest temperatures
respectively (right).

end of the simulated brake cycle as a function of the
wheel–rail contact position is shown in Figure 12.
Also, the mean tread temperature for a wheel–rail pos-
ition at the rolling circle as well as the extreme cases
that give highest and lowest temperatures, respectively,
are illustrated in Figure 12. The lowest maximum
temperature 220  C occurs when the contact is located
at 40 mm from the field side and the highest maximum
temperature (257  C) occurs when the contact is
towards the flange side of the tread (yt ¼ 85 mm).
The amount of heat that goes from the wheel to the
rail varies from 21% when the wheel–rail contact is at

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Teimourimanesh et al.
Figure 13. Calculated wheel tread temperature when the wheel–rail contact moves periodically with amplitude 20.0 mm and period
8 min. The maximum temperature is 237 C at a position 31.8 mm from the field side.
the flange side up to 27 % when the wheel–rail contact
is at yt ¼ 40 mm.
Furthermore, the influence of the vehicle’s periodic
lateral movement was studied by simulating different
amplitudes and time periods for sinusoidal wheel–rail
contact movements with the same drag braking con-
dition as previously considered. In general it is found
that long time periods, see the example in Figure 13,
give a higher maximum tread temperature than do
short ones. The time period of the lateral movement
was tested for magnitudes between 10 min and 10 s.
For example, time periods in the range 4–10 min have
a highest maximum temperature of about 240  C,
whereas really short time periods have a highest max-
imum temperature of about 226  C. Moreover, the
amplitude of the wheel-rail contact movement over
the wheel tread was varied from 29.2 mm down to
10 mm.
The influence of banding during braking was stu-
died by introducing stop braking cycles on a wheel
with an elevated temperature. For these simulations,
the wheel and brake blocks were assumed to have a
constant initial temperature of 100  C while the rail
temperature was taken to be 0  C. Three alternatives
for brake heat input distribution in the axial direc-
tion were tested, see Figure 7. The simulated case
corresponds to initial stop braking power Q ¼ mav ¼
7500 kg  1 m/s2  100/3.6 m/s ¼ 208 kW and braking
time 27.8 s to a standstill. Correspondingly, the
brake power is ramped down to zero. Figure 14
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105
illustrates the tread temperatures as a function of
time for non-uniform pressure distribution along the
wheel–block contact with n ¼ 0 (see Figure 7) during a
single stop braking cycle. Table 10 shows the highest
tread temperature of the wheel for a wheel–rail con-
tact (and rail cooling effect) positioned at the rolling
circle. It can be clearly seen that a non-uniform pres-
sure distribution increases the maximum tread tem-
perature. For comparison, the same information is
also included for the case where the cooling effect of
the rail is not considered. The comparison shows that
the maximum tread temperature is not significantly
changed for these cases.
Discussion
The circumferential model, which only allows simulat-
ing effects over a short period of time due to compu-
tational constraints, shows that hot spots (tread
temperature oscillations in the circumferential direc-
tion) have a negligible influence on the heat partition-
ing in the wheel–rail–block system, see Table 4. Even
though the maximum tread temperatures (for simu-
lated braking with composite brake blocks) increase
substantially due to the temperature perturbations
superimposed on the bulk temperature, the global
heat input to the wheel (Qw) does not change.
Moreover, the wheel–rail contact (rail cooling effect)
is found to reduce the maximum tread temperatures.
After five simulated revolutions of the wheel, the rail
106
Figure 14. Calculated tread temperatures for non-uniform pressure distribution with n ¼ 0, see Figure 7. The maximum tread
temperature and the corresponding distance from field side are 358 C and 17.8 mm, respectively.
Table 10. Calculated maximum tread temperature and
corresponding positions for uniform and non-uniform
distributions, see Figure 7.
Maximum tread temperatures ( C)
Pressure With rail cooling effect No rail cooling effect
Uniform 288 290
n¼0 358 358
n¼1 432 439
takes about 22% of the total braking power. It should
be noted that the wheel at the start of the simulated
braking has an elevated temperature of 100  C (from
assumed previous braking actions). However, this high
percentage of the heat going into the rail (22%) is
only valid for the part of the tread that passes
through the wheel–rail contact. Since this part is only
a minor part of the total wheel–brake block contact a
reduced measure for the power leaving the wheel for
the rail was calculated. It was found that the reduced
rail cooling effect is only about 2% of the total brake
power. From this it can be concluded that cooling
effect of the rail is important if local temperatures on
the tread are considered, but not globally for bulk tem-
peratures when studying a single stop braking event.
The choice of materials in the brake blocks has an
influence on the heat partitioning. Here composite
brakes result in the largest heat flow to the wheel
(about 83%), sinter brakes are intermediate (about
72%) and cast iron brakes create the smallest heat
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Proc IMechE Part F: J Rail and Rapid Transit 228(1)
flow to the wheel (about 50%), see Table 7. These
differences may be explained by two major effects:
the heat partitioning parameters (Table 6) and the
material properties (Table 3). From the thermal resist-
ances in Table 6, one may calculate the heat partition-
ing between the two bodies if one assumes equal initial
temperatures (see equation (7)) with the result that 81,
70 and 44% of the heat flows to the wheel, respect-
ively, for composite, sinter and cast iron brake blocks.
However, as the block and wheel temperatures evolve
during braking, the second term in the heat partition-
ing equation comes into play and heat is conducted
between the two bodies. For this latter part of the heat
partitioning process, the material properties of the
block material will, together with the thermal resist-
ance values, determine the temperature response of
the block and hence the additional power transferred
from the block to the wheel by conduction. In order
to investigate the influence of the heat partitioning
resistances, they were substantially reduced (multi-
plied by 0.001) in some simulations, see Table 8.
The brake blocks then approximately take on the
same temperature as the wheel tread. It was found
in simulations with a constant block–wheel pressure
(i.e. no hot spots) that the block temperature
decreases substantially due to the good thermal con-
duction into the wheel and, consequently, the wheel
temperatures increase. However, when hot spots are
present on the tread, the high thermal conduction
between block and wheel has a different effect: it
evens out temperature differences on the tread since
the temperature on the tread becomes close to that of
the brake block. For the composite and sinter blocks
Teimourimanesh et al.
this can be seen as a decrease in the maximum tem-
peratures when simulating hot spots with the resist-
ances scaled by 0.001 (Table 8). The same effect is
present when braking with the cast iron brake
blocks, i.e. the temperature differences on the tread
are suppressed. However, since the block in the
normal case takes such a large part of the heat and
since the block temperature is now substantially
reduced, the maximum wheel temperature neverthe-
less increases for this case (but with eliminated tem-
perature variations).
The simulations with the axisymmetric model high-
lighted two phenomena: first, the influence of the pos-
ition of the rail cooling effect i.e. the effect of the
assumed axial position of the rolling contact and
second, the influence of banding during a stop brak-
ing cycle. In order to the study the effect of the pos-
ition of the rail cooling effect, a drag braking cycle
(30 kW for 30 min) was simulated which gave a slow
increase of the tread temperature. For a constant pos-
ition for the wheel–rail contact, it was found that the
maximum tread temperature ranged from 220 to
256  C (or that the part of the heat going to the rail
at the end of the brake cycle ranges from 21 to 27%).
The lowest temperature was found for a wheel–rail
contact slightly towards the field side of a central
brake block position, and the highest tread tempera-
ture occurred for a wheel–rail contact towards the
flange side. The position giving the highest cooling
(i.e. lowest tread maximum temperature) coincided
with the position giving the maximum tread tempera-
ture if no rail cooling effect was considered. It was
found that the nominal position of the wheel–rail con-
tact at the rolling circle (yt ¼ 65 mm from the field side
of the rim) gave a maximum tread temperature of
241  C (the rail cooling effect then takes 25% of the
brake power). These examples with a constant wheel
position show the limitations of the rail cooling effect,
but in reality the position of the wheel–rail contact is
dictated by the running behaviour of the train, i.e.
how the wheelset moves laterally on the rail. For
this reason, the wheel–rail contact was allowed to
move on the tread for given time periods. For these
cases it was found that slow oscillations gave max-
imum temperatures somewhat lower than for
moving on straight track (constant rolling at the roll-
ing circle). However, for faster implemented vari-
ations the maximum tread temperature decreased
towards the lowest value for a constant position
(giving 220  C) with a temperature of 226  C. Lastly,
the influence from simulated banding during a stop
braking cycle was studied. For this case, it was found
that rail cooling effect has a minor influence on the
maximum temperatures which may be explained by
the high power levels sent to the wheel, generally
making the cooling heat fluxes from the rail cooling
effect or convection small or negligible. This was illu-
strated by comparing the maximum tread tempera-
tures when the rail cooling effect was not considered
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107
and it was shown that the temperature differences
were small.
Concluding remarks
The generated temperatures and heat partitioning
between wheel, block and rail during tread braking
have been studied. First, by use of a circumferential
model, the effects of short time period braking at
powers typical for a stop braking cycle were analysed
under the assumption that hot spots appear on the
tread. Second, by use of an axisymmetric model, the
influence of the position of the rail cooling effect (con-
stant offset wheel–rail contact from rolling circle or
oscillatory lateral movement of the contact) was stu-
died for braking over longer time periods. Also, the
influence from banding during a stop braking cycle
has been studied.
In conclusion, when it comes to implications for
wheel dimensioning, the present study indicates that
the global build-up of stress in the wheel rim does not
change when pressure (or temperature) disturbances
are present. However, if the heat partitioning mech-
anisms (i.e. the sharing of power at the frictional inter-
face within the third-body layer) changes as a result of
a locally increased temperature, then global heat par-
titioning will also change. The cooling effect of the rail
on the wheel has been shown to be of minor import-
ance for short stop braking cycles where the heat from
braking dominates over the cooling influence of the
rail on the wheel. However, for prolonged braking
actions, or when multiple braking actions are studied
with intermediate cooling, the cooling effect of the rail
does become important for the evolution of the bulk
temperature in the wheel rim. In general, there is still a
strong demand to reduce train noise by introduction
of new brake block materials. However, the thermal
behaviour of these blocks is not been optimised they
can cause wheel tread damage as a result of excess
heat entering the wheel. The method proposed in
this paper can be used by engineers to shed light on
the local stress distribution and damage in the wheel
tread, wheel deflections and thermal capacity of a
wheel design or braking system.
Acknowledgements
This work was performed as part of the doctoral project
‘Thermal capacity of railway wheels’ carried out at the
Department of Applied Mechanics at Chalmers University
of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden. It forms part of the
activities within the Swedish National Centre of Excellence
CHARMEC (CHAlmers Railway MEChanics, see
www.chalmers.se/charmec). The support of the project
steering committee constituted from representatives of
Bombardier Transportation, Faiveley Transport, Interfleet
Technology and SL Technology is gratefully acknowledged.
Professor Emeritus Bengt Åkesson assisted in improving the
manuscript.
108
Funding
The project was funded by CHARMEC Centre of
Excellence at Chalmers University of Technology which is
supported by the government agency Trafikverket (the
Swedish Transport Administration) and a group of ten
industrial partners.
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Appendix 1
Notation
a, b semi-axes of wheel–rail contact ellipse
(m)
a acceleration (m/s2)
B wheel thickness (m)
c specific heat capacity (J/kg  C)
D wheel diameter (m)
E Young’s modulus (Pa)
h heat transfer coefficient; contact con-
ductance (W/m2  C)
Hb block width (m)
k thermal conductivity (W/m  C)
K thermal conductivity matrix (W/m  C)
l characteristic element length (m)
Lb block length (m)
2m axle load (kg)
N number of hot spots around wheel cir-
cumference (–)
P brake pressure (Pa)
Pe Péclet number (–)
q heat flux (W/m2)
Q thermal power (W)
R thermal resistance (m2  C/W)
t time (s)
T temperature ( C)
v train speed (m/s)
x, y coordinate system (m)
 pressure amplitude scaling factor (-)
 wavelength of hot spots (m)
 coefficient of friction
 Poisson’s ratio
dimensionless length coordinate
Teimourimanesh et al. 109

 density (kg/m3)
’ angular coordinate
Superscript
brake braking
max, min maximum and minimum, respectively
red reduction
Subscripts
b, r, w block, rail and wheel, respectively
t tread

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