IF articles

In this work the methodology and the

calibration procedure of a wheel-set properly instrumented

to measure the wheel-rail contact forces is presented.

The calibration is performed on a non-rolling bench on

which a complete bogie is mounted in order to impose

the correct constraint conditions to the wheel-set. The

contact forces on the wheels of the instrumented wheelset

are measured directly through scales with seven components.

Hence imposing known loads at the wheel-rail

contact and at the same time measuring the deformations

produced in the instrumented sections, the calibration

matrix correlating the measured deformations to actual

contact forces can be derived, making it possible the

in-line estimation of the three force components for each

wheel. In addition, the calibration procedure proposed

allows to get an estimation of the uncertainty associated

with the measurement of the contact forces.