Keywords: vehicle-track interaction, wheel-rail contact, angle of attack, yaw angle, switch and crossing, small radius curves.

Wheelset yaw angle are often present in small radius curves or small radius switches where a transition curve and cant are absent. The wheel and the rail geometries when the wheelset is yawed, has an effect on the kinematics of the guidance of the wheelset which also affects the complex vehicle-track dynamic interaction. Conventionally, in multi-body simulation code software, wheel-rail contact is solved in the pre-processing stage, neglecting the yaw effect in the wheel-rail contact geometry solution. The effect is assumed insignificant or in some software a simple approximation is followed to consider the effect in the post-processor. A methodology which includes the yaw effect of the wheelset in the wheel-rail contact geometry problem is presented here. The methodology is used to simulate the complex vehicle-track interaction through small radius curves and switch entry. The benefits and the drawbacks of this methodology are discussed and supported by some dynamic simulations results.

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