A review of vehicle system dynamics in the development of high-speed trains in China

Abstract

The flourishing railway industry in China comes as not only a surprise for the world but also a promoter for the development of high speed railway across the globe. In this paper, a retrospect of China’s high speed railway is introduced, including its railway network plans, construction progress and operation status. A synopsis of the progress made on high speed trains is also presented from their primal stage of technology acquisition to the latter stages of innovative research and development as well as the current types of bullet trains and their uses. The breakthrough of the 500 km/h test train developed by China is also highlighted in this letter inclusive of its design, technical indexes and fundamental testing functionalities. For China to rapidly but yet successfully develop its high speed railway industry and bullet trains, fundamental research will play as much an important role as technical innovation. Sound research on the dynamics is crucial toward the high quality performance and safety operation of high speed trains which include key factors such as vehicle design, operation and maintenance solutions, integration of the track network, and the effects of coupling systems on the dynamics performance of the train system such as airflow, pantograph–catenary and power source–current collection systems. To tackle the problems associated with the increasing of train speed, we have developed a corresponding dynamics coupled system of the track–vehicle–pantograph–catenary–airflow system based on vehicle system dynamics (VSD). Comparing to traditional VSD research, in addition to considering the coupled system dynamics between vehicle and track, wheel and rail, fluid and solid, as well as vehicle and vehicle, the newly developed VSD also vastly increases the degrees of freedom in its calculations, enlarging the traditional VSD to a vast system dynamics (also VSD), giving VSD a new meaning. This paper elaborates the modeling and coupling relations of the track–vehicle–pantograph–catenary–airflow coupled system dynamics. Focusing on high speed trains, the train parameters, track status, and effects of airflow conditions on train dynamics performance was investigated as well as the safety precautions due to limitations from track irregularity and crosswinds.