Laboratory investigation of some sanding parameters to improve the adhesion in leaf-contaminated wheel—rail contacts

Leaf contamination has been identified as the major cause of low adhesion incidents occurring on some railway networks in the last few decades. In the presence of leaf layers, the trains cannot have the required adhesion at the wheel—rail contact for adequate traction and braking operation. Under these circumstances, not only the punctuality but also the safety of the railway transportation can be threatened. In order to mitigate low adhesion problems, railway organizations have opted for different measures, particularly during the season of Autumn. The most employed measure consists of bringing sand to the wheel—rail interface, which can be performed by means of air-pumped sanders or in the form of sand-based friction modifiers. Although sand has widely been accepted as an effective adhesion improver, the effect of some sanding parameters on the adhesion improvement in leaf-contaminated contacts seems to be unclear. This hinders the possible optimized use of sand on the railway networks. In this paper, the influence of the number of sanding axles, particle size of sand, and wheel slip on the adhesion recovery in leaf-contaminated wheel—rail contacts is presented. Rolling—sliding tests under closely controlled conditions have been performed on a twin-disc roller rig. An electrical circuit has been connected to the rig for monitoring the effect of contamination on the electrical conductivity across the wheel—rail contact. The results show that the application of sand contributes to removing the leaf layers from the disc surfaces, which leads to a higher adhesion coefficient in comparison with the untreated (baseline) situation. Accordingly, the electrical conductivity across the wheel—rail contact is also improved. Furthermore, the adhesion recovery is shown to become larger and faster with the increase in sanding axles and wheel slip. Among the particle sizes tested in this work, medium particles are found to yield the most effective adhesion recovery.