Considering the total cost of railway operations, it is important to reduce the deterioration caused to the track by rail vehicles and vice versa. Radial steering running gear, where the wheelsets take up approximate radial positions in curves, is an important mean of reducing rail and wheel wear. They also allow curves to be negotiated at higher lateral acceleration or non-perfect track, without exceeding stipulated limits for lateral track shift forces. In order to run dynamically stable at high speed, the damping of the bogie must be appropriate, in particular the yaw damping between bogies and car body. Since the mid-1970s radial self-steering bogies have been developed and used in about 1200 passenger rail vehicles in Scandinavia. This development continues and during 2006 a test train with radial self-steering bogies is run in speeds up till 281 km/h as part of the Swedish R&D program GrönaTaget (GreenTrain). The lateral track forces are low, typically 50-65 % of the limit values. Simulations of wheel and rail wheel show significant advantages for the softer wheelset guidance. The difference between the soft and medium bogie configurations is quite small when it comes to running behaviour at higher speeds, but more obvious when it comes to small-radius curve negotiation. Although there are limitations in the performance of passively self-steering bogies they are a simple and proven solution. Ultimately, in the future actively controlled radial steering may be considered as an appropriate mean to achieve higher performance and track-friendliness.
Radial self-steering bogies - Development, advantages and limitations
Drehgestelle mit radial einstellbaren Radsätzen - Entwicklung, Vorteile und Grenzen
Moderne Schienenfahrzeuge, 37 ; 248-259
ZEVrail Glasers Annalen ; 131 , Sonderheft Tagungsband
2007
12 Seiten, 15 Bilder, 11 Quellen
Conference paper
English
Fahrzeuge - Radial self-steering bogies -- Development, advantages and limitations
Online Contents | 2007
|Radial self-steering bogies - Development, advantages and limitation
IuD Bahn | 2007
|Steering characteristics of bogies
Engineering Index Backfile | 1968
|SPOORNET'S EXPERIENCE REFINES STEERING BOGIES
Online Contents | 1996
The Effect of Locomotive Radial Steering Bogies on Wheel and Rail Wear
British Library Conference Proceedings | 1996
|