Railway Wheel Life-Cycle Management: Design, Degradation, Monitoring, and Condition-Based Maintenance

Abstract

Increasing operating speed, axle load and utilisation intensify contact forces, creepages and excitation frequencies at the wheel-rail interface, making tread and flange degradation a persistent challenge in modern railway operation. Railway wheels are safety-critical load-bearing components, and service performance is governed by coupled evolution of wear, rolling contact fatigue (RCF), out-of-roundness and thermally influenced surface response under vehicle-track coupled dynamics. The review adopts a life-cycle structure covering design and manufacture, in-service degradation with prediction, and condition monitoring with maintenance intervention. For design and manufacture, the discussion covers wheel steel design and heat treatment, profile design and equivalent conicity control, process routes with residual stress management, and durability under regional environments. For in-service operation, wheel-rail system matching, wear and profile evolution modelling and RCF assessment are compared in terms of governing assumptions, required inputs and applicability across operating regimes. For condition-based maintenance, the review links depot inspection, wayside and on-board monitoring and decision rules to intervention options including turning, reprofiling, laser cladding repair and surface strengthening. The review highlights a closed-loop view of wheel life management in which prediction, monitoring and intervention are aligned against route-specific loading spectra, safety margin and whole-life cost.