The Influence of Truck Construction Errors on the Running Stability of a Railway Vehicle. 1st Report. Stability of a Wheelset Model Having an Axle Misalignment.

Abstract

Since the misalignment of wheelsets in a truck renders the characteristics of the creep forces acting between wheel and rail strongly nonlinear, it may affect the stability of the hunting motion of a railway vehicle. As the first step in this investigation, the stability of a single misaligned wheelset is studied by means of numerical integrations and characteristic roots analyses of the linearized system. As a result, it is found that, although not rendering the motion instable in the practical range of parameters, the misalignment of a wheelset diminishes the stability margin considerably.