Abstract
Each year around the world there are still several cases of train derailments on the curved tracks due to overspeed, leading to big casualties and costs to the rail industries. With the ongoing increase on the speed, the possibility of train derailment increases, especially on the sharp curved tracks. Guard rails are usually placed parallel to regular running rails along areas of restrictive clearance, such as a bridge, tunnel, or sharp curved track. They have the effect of keeping the wheels of rolling stock in alignment in case of derailment. The investigation on the guide rail which is used to mitigate the train derailment due to a curved track and overspeed is carried out through the simulations. The simulation results show that installing guard rails can largely reduce the train derailment potential caused by a sharp curve and overspeed. The clearance between the low rail and the guard rail (namely, the flangeway width) is critical for the effectiveness of guard rail. The optimal position of guide rail – the height over the top of low railhead and lateral distance between guide rail and low rail would be determined through the simulations.
Highlights
The rail transportation has been world-widely recognized as a safer one
Basic mechanism can be explained that when the train is running on a sharp curved track at a much higher speed than the speed limit set due to the curved track, which would result in the resultant force vector, whose components include the centrifugal force, the gravity and the inertial forces of lateral and vertical vibrations, to go toward outside of the outer rail from the gravity center of the vehicle, the overturn derailment would happen on the vehicle of train
The wear on nose rail would be significantly decreased and the opportunity of wheel impact on nose rail would be significantly diminished, which was useful to maintain running vehicle safe and extend the nose rail’s long service life. It was mentioned (Iwnicki, 2016) that the wheel flange climb derailment on sharp curved tracks could be prevented by installing the guard rails, the cornering wear on high rail could be reduced
Summary
Reviewed by: Akira Matsumoto, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, Japan. Specialty section: This article was submitted to Transportation and Transit Systems, a section of the journal Frontiers in Mechanical Engineering. One guard rail can be placed inside the low rail, where it engages the back of the wheel flange. The simulations demonstrate that the guard rail can reduce the train derailment potential caused by a sharp curve and overspeed. The lateral clearance between wheel rim back and guard rail, as well as the height over the low rail top, is crucial in the effectiveness of guard rail. Their optimal selections could be obtained through the further simulations
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