The wheel polygonisation is the harmonic wave along the wheel circumference, which has been widely reported in high-speed railway vehicles in China in recent years. The polygonization mechanism has not been fully understood yet, and this work discusses one possible mechanism through several experiments. Firstly, a field test for the CRH3 high-speed train with polygonal wheels is carried out. It is found that the vibration in vertical takes major responsibility, and there are several resonance bands for the train-track system. Another field test shows that the rail is sensitive to the polygonisation characteristic frequency, but the wheel axle is not. Then the rail local vibration modes are analyzed by the operational deflection shape (ODS) test in the laboratory. A loaded bogie is fixed on the tested track to simulate the real working conditions. The result shows that the frequency of one local mode is 591 Hz, which is a typical wheel polygonisation frequency. Besides, the wheel-rail contact point is not on the vibration node of this local mode. Thus, the resonance of this local rail mode can be one possible mechanism for the high-order wheel polygonisation.

车轮多边形是沿车轮圆周的谐波，近年来在我国高铁车辆中得到广泛报道。多边形化机制尚未完全了解，这项工作通过多次实验讨论了一种可能的机制。首先对CRH3型多角轮高速列车进行现场试验。结果表明，垂直方向的振动起主要作用，列车轨道系统存在多个共振带。另一项现场测试表明，钢轨对多边形特征频率敏感，但轮轴则不然。然后在实验室中通过运行挠度形状 (ODS) 测试分析轨道局部振动模式。加载的转向架固定在测试轨道上以模拟实际工作条件。结果表明，一种局部模式的频率为 591 Hz，这是一个典型的车轮多边形频率。此外，轮轨接触点不在该局部模态的振动节点上。因此，这种局部轨道模式的共振可能是高阶车轮多边形化的一种可能机制。