Resumen
The present paper includes the first part of an investigation of the complex braking process during the braking of railway vehicles, using transient thermal FE models with temperature dependent material properties. In the development of the geometric model, efforts were made to take the test equipment into consideration to as great an extent as possible, enabling the investigation through time of the thermal behaviour of the entire apparatus. Bearing houses were modelled in a simplified manner and contact heat resistances were applied for bearings. Numerical calculations were validated by measurement data. The correspondence of the results applying the two methods was acceptable.