Narrow Results

Based on the nonlinear creep model and Kalker's linear theory, this paper studies the governing differential equations of motion for a tilting railway vehicle moving over irregular curved tracks under wind loads. The tilting vehicle is modeled by a 24-degree-of-freedom (24-DOF) car system, considering the lateral, roll and yaw motions of each wheelset, the lateral, vertical, roll and yaw motions of each bogie frame and the car body. The derailment quotients of the tilting railway vehicle with the wheelsets moving over irregular rails in the lateral direction and the car body acted upon by the wind loads are investigated for various tilting angles. The analysis results show that in general, the derailment quotient of the wheelset increases as the tilting angle of the railway vehicle increases. When the railway vehicle moves at low speeds, the derailment quotient calculated for the case with rail irregularities is greater than that for the case with no rail irregularities. Moreover, the derailment quotient of a wheelset moving over curved tracks of various radii is presented. Finally, the derailment quotient computed for the case under wind loads is greater than that free of wind loads. As a result, the influence of rail irregularities and wind loads on the derailment risk of a tilting vehicle cannot be ignored.

The dynamically induced ground vibration from high speed trains (HSTs) is investigated using a semi-analytical vehicle–track–ground coupling model. A multi-body vehicle is adopted along with rail irregularity considered in the model. The soil is simulated as a saturated poroelastic half-space with two elastic layers. The coupling system is solved in the transformed domain by applying the Fourier transform, and the dynamic stiffness matrix method is used to deal with the layered soil. The time-domain solutions are obtained by the inverse fast Fourier transform (FFT). The effects of the vehicle speed, observation location, rail irregularity, subgrade-bed stiffness, and vehicle type on the ground vibration are investigated thoroughly. The results show that all these factors can significantly affect the dynamically induced ground vibration.

Utilizing a nonlinear creep model, the dynamic behavior of tilting railway vehicles moving over curved tracks with rail irregularities and under earthquakes and wind loads is studied. The car model adopted consists of 28 degrees of freedom, capable of simulating the lateral, vertical, roll and yaw motions for the wheelsets, truck frames and car body. The derailment quotient is investigated to analyze the running safety of a tilting railway vehicle using the linear and nonlinear creep models, while considering the rail irregularities and environmental forces for various tilting angles. Generally, the derailment risk of the tilting railway vehicle is higher than that of non-tilting railway vehicle with or without rail irregularities and environmental forces. The derailment quotients calculated by the linear creep model are underestimated for a tilting railway vehicle. In addition, the derailment quotients evaluated for rough rails and under environmental forces are higher than those obtained for smooth rails with no environmental forces. It is confirmed that rail irregularities and each type of environmental forces have decisive effects on derailment quotients. They are compared and ranked according to their significance.

A novel practical element is presented for simulating the vertical wheel-rail interaction (WRI) of vehicle-track-bridge (VTB) coupling systems. The WRI is time- and location-varying, which makes the simulation of the VTB system complicated. The new element simulates the WRI using a location dependent internal resisting force, which enables the finite element (FE) model of the VTB system to remain unchanged in analysis. This element is capable of simulating the nonlinear WRI, the rail irregularity and the ‘additional’ displacement of the rail. The ‘additional’ displacement is the extra displacement caused by the WRI besides that interpolated from the element nodal displacements, which is usually ignored by existing models, but may be non-negligible in some cases. The WRI element is implemented into a general FE software framework, OpenSees, and verified by the dynamic analysis of a simply-supported beam subjected to a moving sprung mass. Furthermore, a realistic VTB system with a moving four-wheel vehicle is investigated to evaluate the cases where the additional displacement and nonlinear WRI should be considered. Finally, using another realistic VTB system subjected to rail irregularities and earthquakes, the effects of rail irregularity and earthquake on the dynamic responses of the WRI system are studied and compared.

Rail irregularities are the main factors influencing the ride comfort of trains moving over tracks. Despite various investigations made in this regard for the ballasted tracks, there is a lack of studies for the ballast-less tracks. This limitation is addressed in this study. To this end, a vehicle/slab-track interaction numerical model was developed, which was validated by comparison of the results obtained herein with those of the field tests carried out in this study. The effects of rail irregularities with various amplitudes and wavelengths on the ride comfort were studied by a comprehensive parametric analysis. Particularly, the effects of the wavelengths and amplitudes of rail irregularity on the ride comfort were investigated. Contrary to the current understanding, it was shown that rail irregularities with short wavelength have considerable effects on the ride comfort for the slab-tracks. In addition, the ride comfort decreases significantly when the wavelengths of rail irregularity become less than 0.75m in the metro lines. The critical speed of the train (at which the lowest ride comfort is obtained) was derived as a function of rail irregularity. The results obtained indicate that the amplitude of rail irregularity has negligible influence on the critical speed of the train.

The pseudo excitation method (PEM) is improved for its efficiency by incorporating the self-adaptive Gauss integration (SGI) technology as a new combining integration. The PEM can transform the random rail irregularities into some pseudo harmonic excitation, which is a mature approach to deal with the random excitation for vehicle–bridge systems. The SGI was used to distinguish the significant from the insignificant parts of an integral section for the random excitation frequency on the stochastic response of the system, thereby reducing the computational effort required for the random vibration analysis of the system. Also, the SGI can intelligently handle the recognized integral section, by subdividing the important sections into several necessary frequency points, making rough decomposition, and allowing the unimportant regions to be eliminated. Based on selected frequency points, the deterministic pseudo harmonic excitations were generated, and then the standard deviation (SD) of the time history for the system was calculated by the PEM. The vehicle subsystem was simulated as a 23-degree of freedom model, and the bridge subsystem as a three-dimensional finite element model. The time-varying power spectral density (PSD) plots of the system were presented. Besides, the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the response was calculated using Poisson’s crossing assumption. The random characteristics for the vehicle–bridge vibrations for different speeds and rail irregularities were calculated.