Assessment of modern rolling stock pulling drive gear reliability

Abstract

This paper presents an issue of rolling stock pulling drive gear (PDG) reliability assessment in operation, considering the gear and pitch wheel wear. Among main damages attributive to gear and pitch wheel reject are cheeping of teeth, peeling, plastic deformation. It is noted that the PDG reliability assessment shall be reasonably carried out upon a significant probability of their fail-safe operation that is determined by the rolling contact fatigue resistance. The provided mathematical study design on the PDG reliability assessment of ER-2 electrical multiple train and the corresponding mathematical model PН.=f( 1 ,2 ) is developed. The auxiliary curve is added to the reasonable selection of gear-pitch wheel pair. The provided materials allow to reasonably select gear-pitch wheel pairs obtaining the maximum pulling drive gear fail-safe operation probability values that result in the reliability increase. Recommendations on the further application of the suggested approach during repair of pulling drive gears of modern rolling stock are provided.