In recent years, different systems have been developed in order to improve the dynamic behaviour of railway vehicles when passing through turnouts. Some of these improvements consist in varying the geometry of the switch itself and including moveable crossing vees. It is worth mentioning that they are designed by taking a certain wheel profile into consideration, i.e. it is assumed that the wheel profile does not change. The objective of the current study is to determine the influence that the turnout design has on vehicle dynamics, as well as the influence that the variability in wheel profiles can have on the effectiveness of the different systems. In order to do this, the MBS software Simpack was used to model one vehicle with two different turnouts and four different profiles. The results show that the geometrical design of the turnout has a critical influence on the vehicle/ turnout. We also concluded that the wheel profile does not have a significant influence when the vehicle passes through turnouts. It is worth noting that, in general, each railway administration demands specific solutions from the turnout manufacturer. The demands are so specific for every order that standardisation is almost impossible. The design of a turnout is based on customer specification, and wheel profile is one of the most important specifications of the design. Multibody simulations, in which the detailed geometry of the turnout is included, have proved to be an interesting tool for the dynamic analysis of vehicle/turnout interaction. There are benefits for both the development of new turnout designs and the analysis of different wheel profiles passing the same turnout. Two different turnouts were modelled with four different wheel profiles, and two main studies were carried out. The first one looked at the influence of the turnout design, and the second one studied the influence of wheel profiles on the dynamic behaviour of the system. One of the main conclusions of the work presented in this paper is that the geometrical design of a turnout has a critical influence on the vehicle/turnout dynamics. A specific solution, FAKOP, has shown remarkable improvement in guiding the axle compared to a traditional solution. Additionally, and as expected, a moveable nose solution dramatically reduces the impacts in the crossing zone. Once the turnout geometry is defined, the wheel profile has a secondary influence. This effect was analysed using four different wheel profiles. It was shown that, when circulating on major tracks, gauge clearance and wheel conicity determine the amplitude and the wavelength of the hunting movement and consequently the amplitude of the wheel/ track forces.
Rail vehicle passing through a turnout: Analysis of different turnout designs and wheel profiles
2012
16 Seiten, 23 Bilder, 4 Tabellen, 18 Quellen
Article (Journal)
English
Rail vehicle passing through a turnout: analysis of different turnout designs and wheel profiles
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