Abstract
The elastic vibration of the wheelset is a potential factor inducing wheel-rail defects. It is important to understand the natural vibration characteristics of the flexible wheelset for slowing down the defect growth. To estimate the elastic free vibration of the railway wheelset with the multidiameter axle, the transfer matrix method (TMM) is applied. The transfer matrices of four types of elastic beam models are derived including the Euler–Bernoulli beam, Timoshenko beam, elastic beam without mass and shearing stiffness, and massless elastic beam with shearing stiffness. For each type, the simplified model and detailed models of the flexible wheelset are developed. Both bending and torsional modes are compared with that of the finite element (FE) model. For the wheelset bending modes, if the wheel axle is modelled as the Euler–Bernoulli beam and Timoshenko beam, the natural frequencies can be reflected accurately, especially for the latter one. Due to the lower solving accuracy, the massless beam models are not applicable for the analysis of natural characteristics of the wheelset. The increase of the dividing segment number of the flexible axle is helpful to improve the modal solving accuracy, while the computation effort is almost kept in the same level. For the torsional vibration mode, it mainly depends on the axle torsional stiffness and wheel inertia rather than axle torsional inertia.
Highlights
Wheelsets are key moving components in the railway vehicle systems
Many practical problems induced by wheel axle bending and torsional vibrations in the mid-high frequency domain have occurred frequently. ese vibrations can be observed in all sorts of railway systems such as high-speed railways, subways, and heavy-haul railways
Some researchers have indicated that the rail corrugation, wheel-rail stick-slip vibration, and even wheel polygon wear are closely associated with wheelset elastic vibrations and track vibrations [1, 2], as shown in Figure 1. erefore, it is very important to obtain the natural vibration characteristics of wheelsets so that the corresponding vibration isolation or control measures from the aspect of the railway vehicle can be proposed to alleviate the abnormal defects induced by the wheelset elastic vibration
Summary
Wheelsets are key moving components in the railway vehicle systems. Conventional rigid-body modeling methods only evaluate wheelset vibration characteristics in low frequency. Chen et al [5, 6] developed a wheelset-track coupled FE model and found that self-excited vibrations induced by the dynamic friction coefficient as well as the spring stiffness and damping of the sleeper supports both had important influences on rail corrugation formation and wheel polygonalization. Giner-Navarro et al [15] considered the interaction between a single-flexible-rotatory wheelset and elastic track to investigate the influence of wheel-rail stick-slip vibration on wheel squeal. E torsional vibration can be solved by the elastic axle models with or without mass Another point investigated in this paper is that what are the differences among various axle modeling methods in analyzing wheelset natural vibrations? E transfer matrices for different elastic beam models are derived and applied to calculate wheelset natural vibration characteristics. Another point investigated in this paper is that what are the differences among various axle modeling methods in analyzing wheelset natural vibrations? A typical freight wagon wheelset will be used as an example. e transfer matrices for different elastic beam models are derived and applied to calculate wheelset natural vibration characteristics. e corresponding FE models are developed to verify the theoretical analysis results and examine the solving accuracies of different transfer matrix models
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