Simulation Analysis of the Influence of Changes in Track Parameters on Running Safety of a Rail Vehicle

Bogdan Sowiński,Andrzej Chudzikiewicz,Anna Stelmach

doi:10.3390/en14185882

Abstract

The contemporary striving for increased speed in rail transport, with simultaneous requirements in terms of travel comfort, makes the safety of rail vehicles one of the priorities in the process of passenger rail transport. It is obvious that safety in this case is determined by: the technical condition of the vehicle, the condition of the railway infrastructure and the conditions of cooperation between the railway vehicle and the track. Railway vehicles running safety tests can be carried out on-line, in real operating conditions, and off-line with the use of mathematical models and simulation methods. The on-line research does not assess the impact of the parameter characterizing the track geometry, i.e., rail inclination, on the driving safety, and the deviation of the shape of wheel and rail running surfaces from the nominal dimensions is rarely diagnosed and taken into account in the tests. The considerations in this article are devoted to the discussion of the effects on the safety of a rail vehicle, resulting from possible changes in the inclination of the rails and deviations of the rail profile from the nominal dimensions. The research, the results of which are presented in the article, were carried out using off-line methods for the wheelset, using mathematical models, but taking into account the forces resulting from the interactions of the bogie frame and the railway wagon body and the real track geometry.

Highlights

The issue of railway transport safety is a broad issue and the studies conducted in this area are carried out with the use of railway vehicles and real operating conditions, as well as with the use of mathematical models and computer simulation methods [1,2,3,4]
We will discuss the influence of the system geometry on the vehicle dynamics for the MD522 wheel set model described by the equations presented below
Considering the influence of the rail inclination on the kinematic and dynamic parameters of the wheel set, the obtained results show that the change in rail inclination may cause differences in the lateral displacements of the set of up to 15%, while the differences in the transverse forces acting on the wheel may be on the order of several dozen percent

Summary

Introduction

The issue of railway transport safety is a broad issue and the studies conducted in this area are carried out with the use of railway vehicles and real operating conditions, as well as with the use of mathematical models and computer simulation methods [1,2,3,4]. An example of works dealing with the influence of track irregularities on vehicle behavior and vehicle response to track input for straight track and turnouts are the works [10,11] The authors of these works emphasize the importance of this problem, emphasizing the need for research in which it is possible to study the influence of the rail geometry on the behavior of the vehicle, taking into account such basic parameters as geometric irregularities i.e., longitudinal level and alignment or track gauge, and other parameters characterizing the track, such as, e.g., rail inclination

Results

Discussion

Conclusion