Simulation of the Thermal Behavior of Cast Iron Brake Block during Braking Maneuvers

In recent years, the interest in monitoring the operating conditions of freight wagons has grown significantly to improve the safety of railway vehicles. The railway research group of the Politecnico di Torino has been working for years on the development of solutions to effectively monitor the operating conditions of passenger and freight rail vehicles. As part of the national Cluster ITS Italy 2020 project funded by Italian ministry of education, university and research (MIUR), the Politecnico di Torino has collected a considerable amount of data thanks to the wired and wireless prototypes developed. The data obtained are used in this paper for the validation and calibration of a finite element (FE) model that simulates the temperature variation of a cast iron brake block due to braking operations of an intermodal freight wagon. The developed model can be a useful tool to predict the temperature at the wheel–shoe interface as a function of the current operating conditions since a direct measurement is not easy to perform.