High-order polygonal wear wheels have been detected on metro express train operating on one metro line in China, which cause fatigue failures of steel coil springs in the primary suspension. A series of tests and theory analysis were conducted to figure out the mechanism of wheel high-order polygonal wear. The wheel out-of-roundness (OOR) measurement results show that the wheels exhibit polygonal wear with 12–14 harmonics, which are very different from other metro train wheels reported in the literature. The investigation results indicate that the first bending vibration of the wheelset is the root cause of wheel high-order polygonal wear. Rail corrugation with a wavelength of 200 mm in the 1/3-octave band on sharply curved tracks is the main excitation source of the first bending vibration of the wheelset. The formation process and key influencing factors of wheel high-order polygonal wear are analysed in detail. Three measures are suggested to mitigate the formation of wheel high-order polygonal wear.

我国某地铁线路运行的地铁特快列车检测到高阶多边形磨损轮，导致主悬架钢螺旋弹簧疲劳失效。通过一系列的试验和理论分析，找出了车轮高阶多边形磨损的机理。车轮不圆度 (OOR) 测量结果表明，车轮表现出具有 12-14 次谐波的多边形磨损，这与文献中报道的其他地铁列车车轮非常不同。调查结果表明，轮对的第一次弯曲振动是车轮高阶多边形磨损的根本原因。急弯轨道上1/3倍频程内波长为200mm的钢轨波纹是轮对第一次弯曲振动的主要激发源。详细分析了车轮高阶多边形磨损的形成过程及关键影响因素。提出了三种措施来减轻车轮高阶多边形磨损的形成。