Correlation between the main diagnostic features of rail vehicles’ wheel profiles in the operational period

The paper is dedicated to correlations between the main diagnostic features utilised for assessing the wear of wheel tyre running treads and the wear of wheel flanges. The paper focuses on analysis of the correlations between these features in the period between the mounting of new wheel tyres or new monoblock wheels in a given wheelset up to their replacement. The wheels of Electric Multiple Units and shunting locomotives were the objects of the research. The measurement data obtained from a domestic railway undertaking contain, however, many errors. It was noted that in some cases the measured values were put in the wrong places on the measurement cards. It is also possible that in some cases the wheel surfaces were not prepared properly for measurements. For those reasons, only some data, for which there were no doubts regarding credibility, were chosen. Those data were appropriate for determining the trend line equations, which depict an overview of how the values of the diagnostic features are correlated with each other. The obtained functions of the characteristics of the changes in the diagnostic features as well as calculated Pearson correlation coefficients show that there is a significant correlation between those features. This is not dependent on the significantly different operational conditions of the groups of tested rail vehicles. Conclusions on the existence of significant correlations between the tested features can be used for the creation of innovative solutions dedicated for wheel diagnostics of rail vehicles. This especially applies to the design of analytical functions, which could be used for real time verification of the correctness of the measurement results.