Creep forces are the primary mechanism for steering a wheelset on a rail track. Therefore, their evaluation is essential for modeling the train lateral dynamics, wear and rolling contact fatigue on rails and wheels. These forces are highly dependent on geometric properties such as contact position and wheel rolling radius. This study presents a comparative analysis of obtaining such contact properties using three different 2D contact models: rigid (geometric) contact, elastic penalty contact and elastic barrier contact. The case study is a scenario of a wheelset with new wheels in contact with a track with new rails. The three contact formulations yielded similar results for the wheel rolling radius, except for the regions of contact discontinuity and flange contact.
