Analysis of Aerodynamic Characteristics of High-speed Train with Asymmetric Heads

Abstract

High-speed transportation is closely related to people’s livelihood and national economy, so it becomes an important development aspect to the whole country. The safety, comfort and economy of high-speed train are the key consideration during its design process. In the future, new trains and old ones will be used for a long time, and the performance of new trains which run on the old lines may be limited. These situations make the research of high-speed train with asymmetric heads much necessary. Aiming at the feasibility of the train with asymmetric heads, the heads of train CRH3 and another typical train with a similar speed are selected. Based on the two heads, the digital models of the traditional trains with symmetric heads and the new trains with asymmetric heads are built firstly. And then their aerodynamic characteristics are computed by the SIMPLE method. In the numerical part, the performances of the trains are compared on the condition without crosswind, which shows that one of the new trains with asymmetric heads is the best among them. Moreover, the aerodynamic characteristics of this new model under crosswind is analyzed, which demonstrates that the train with asymmetric heads is feasible. The research shows that the train with asymmetric heads can achieve better results through the proper aerodynamic shape optimization design, which presents an idea for the future high-speed train design.