Curving Performance of Railway Steering Truck with Asymmetric Leverage Ratio.

Abstract

For the shortening of journey time on railway, many kinds of steering truck have been developed to improve the curving performance and some of them are in practical use at present. However, in the previous report, it was shown that the truck with forced steering mechanism can not reduce the lateral wheel force on sharp curves. This paper deals with a study of a forced steering truck with three axles that has an asymmetric steering lever. In the steering mechanism, the 1st axle in each truck, front and rear, has a larger leverage ratio than the 3rd one, because the lateral force of the leading wheelset is greater than the ones of the other wheelsets on the sharp curve. In the analysis, it is shown that the asymmetric steering mechanism is effective for the reduction of the lateral force of the leading wheelsets in both trucks on the curve sections of radius down to a certain value. For sharp curves of radius less than that, it is confirmed that the addition of self-steering ability to the forced steering truck can make the curving performance better, and it is made clear that the existence of slack affects much to the self-steering ability.