A full-scale roller-rig for railway vehicles: multibody modelling and Hardware In the Loop architecture

In this paper an innovative Hardware In the Loop (HIL) architecture to test braking onboard subsystems on full-scale roller-rigs is described. The new approach allows reproducing on the roller-rig a generic wheel–rail adhesion pattern (especially degraded adhesion conditions) without sliding and, consequently, wear between the roller and wheel surfaces. The presented strategy is also adopted by the innovative full-scale roller-rig of the Railway Research and Approval Center of Firenze-Osmannoro (Italy); the new roller-rig has been built by Trenitalia S.p.A. and is owned by SIMPRO S.p.A. At this initial phase of the research activity, to effectively validate the proposed approach, a complete multibody model of the HIL system has been developed. The numerical model is based on the real characteristics of the components provided by Trenitalia and makes use of an innovative wheel–roller contact model. The results coming from the simulation model have been compared to the experimental data provided by Trenitalia and relative to on-track tests performed in Velim, Czech Republic, with a UIC-Z1 coach equipped with a fully-working WSP system. The preliminary validation performed with the HIL model highlights the good performance of the HIL strategy in reproducing on the roller-rig the complex interaction between degraded adhesion conditions and railway vehicle dynamics during the braking manoeuvre.     

长春轻轨3号线钢轨轨底坡对列车车轮磨耗的影响

摘要： 为探究小半径曲线钢轨轨底坡对车轮磨耗的影响规律,建立长春市轻轨3号线70%低地板轻轨列车车轮磨耗预测分析模型,包括独立旋转轮对的车辆 轨道耦合动力学计算模型、轮轨接触模型和Archard材料磨耗模型,并采用这些模型分析轻轨列车通过小半径曲线轨道时轨底坡对车轮磨耗的影响。分析结果表明：轻轨列车通过小半径曲线轨道时,动车轮对的磨耗程度比拖车轮对更严重,动车轮对总磨耗量为拖车轮对总磨耗量的159%;从轮对自身来看,内侧车轮的磨耗均比外侧车轮的磨耗严重,内侧车轮总磨耗量为外侧车轮总磨耗量的165%;钢轨轨底坡对车轮磨耗的影响显著,车轮踏面最大磨耗量出现位置随轨底坡变化的规律较为复杂,车轮轮缘磨耗量在轨底坡为1/20时最小。     

An inverse shape design method for railway wheel profiles

Optimisation of a railway vehicle–track system is a complex process. The paper presents a procedure for optimal design of a wheel profile based on geometrical wheel/rail contact characteristics such as the rolling radii difference (RRD). The procedure uses optimality criteria based on an RRD function. The criteria account for stability of wheelset, cost efficiency, minimum wear of wheels and rails as well as safety requirements. The shape of the wheel profile approximated by a piecewise cubic Hermite interpolating polynomial is varied during the optimisation process to satisfy the optimality criteria. A numerical technique called multipoint approximations based on response surface fitting (MARS) has been chosen as an optimisation method. The proposed optimum design procedure has been applied to improve the performance of metro trains in Rotterdam (RET), The Netherlands. The trains were suffering from severe wheel tread wear and as a result of that from lateral vibrations (hunting). Using the proposed procedure, a new wheel profile has been obtained and applied to the RET metro trains. The results of the optimisation have shown that the performance of a railway vehicle can be improved by improving the contact properties of the wheel and rail. After the application of the optimised wheel profile, the instability of the metro trains has been eliminated and the lifetime of the wheels has been increased from 15,000 to 120,000 km.     

Freight car models and their computer-aided dynamic analysis

Computer models of freight cars with three-piece and Y25 bogies are considered and compared. Efficient numeric methods for simulation of vehicle models in the presence of frictional contacts are discussed. Some simulation results on derailment safety analysis and influence of track gauge value on freight-car dynamics are presented. Methods of stress loading and durability analysis based on computer simulation and some results are presented. A tribodynamic model of railway vehicle-track interaction and results of computation of wheel and rail profile wear are discussed.     

轻轨线路曲线半径对车轮磨耗的影响

为分析线路曲线半径对轻轨列车车轮磨耗的影响,以长春市轻轨3号线70％低地板轻轨列车车轮为研究对象,建立独立旋转轮对的轻轨车辆-轨道耦合动力学计算模型、轮轨接触模型和Archard材料磨耗模型,对轻轨列车车轮磨耗进行仿真分析.计算结果表明:轻轨列车通过半径为50 m的曲线时,圆曲线上的车轮磨耗比缓和曲线更严重,整体轮对比独立轮对磨耗更严重;曲线半径大于150 m时,内、外侧车轮磨耗随着曲线半径增大而减小,并且在曲线半径相同的条件下,独立轮对各车轮磨耗量均比整体轮对各车轮磨耗量约大2 ～3 mm;随着列车行驶里程的增加,车轮磨耗率有先增大后减小的变化趋势,即可以将车轮磨耗分为快速磨耗和稳定磨耗2个阶段.轻轨车辆外侧车轮的磨耗率大于内侧车轮,说明车轮磨耗主要发生在外侧车轮.     

Railway multibody simulation with the knife-edge-equivalent wheel–rail constraint equations

This paper describes a new numerical procedure for the modelling and simulation of the wheel–rail contact in railway dynamic simulations. The method is called knife-edge-equivalent contact constraint method, or simply KEC-method. Using this method, the wheel–rail contact is modelled as rigid or constraint-based using a set of kinematic constraints that eliminates one-degree of freedom of relative wheel–rail motion. The KEC-method uses a transformed but equivalent wheel profile in contact with a single-point rail. This equivalent profile has the property of producing the same wheelset-rail relative kinematics as the real wheel–rail profiles. The method can be used efficiently online while achieving better computational times than using contact lookup tables. Compared with existing constraint methods, the KEC-method has the following advantages: (1) simplification of the wheel–rail contact constraints, (2) simplified wheel–rail profiles, (3) online solution of the contact constraints, (4) reduction of the number of surface parameters, and (5) increased computational efficiency. A comparative study with respect to the use of efficient contact lookup tables in the simulation of Metro de Sevilla (metropolitan train in the city of Sevilla) shows that this contact method is appropriate to simulate the dynamics of a railway vehicle efficiently.

     

Online prediction model for wheel wear considering track flexibility

The objective of this study is to develop a new online model for wheel wear that takes into account the track flexibility. The proposed model consists of two parts that interact with each other, namely, (a) a locomotive/track coupled dynamics model considering the track flexibility, which is validated by field measurement results, and (b) a model for the wear estimation. The wheel wear prediction model can be employed in online solutions rather than in post-processing. The effect of including the track flexibility on the wear estimation is investigated by comparing the results with those obtained for a rigid track. Moreover, the effect of the wheel profile updating strategy on the wheel wear is also examined. The simulation results indicate that the track flexibility cannot be neglected for the wheel wear prediction. The wear predicted with the rigid track model is generally larger than that predicted with the flexible track model. The strategy of maintaining unchanged wheel profiles during the dynamic simulation coincides with the online updating strategy in terms of the predicted wear.     

Effect of tangent track buckle on vehicle derailment

In order to investigate the effect of a tangent track buckle on the dynamic derailment of a railway vehicle, a coupled vehicle/track dynamics model is developed, in which the vehicle is modeled as a 35 D.O.F. multibody system and the track is modeled as a 3-layer discrete elastic support model. Rails are assumed to be Timoshenko beams supported by discrete sleepers, and the effects of vertical and lateral motions and rolling of the rail on the wheel/rail creepages are taken into account. The sleepers are treated as Euler beams on elastic foundation for the vertical vibration, while as lumped masses in the lateral direction. A moving sleeper support model is developed to simulate the effect of the periodical discrete sleepers on the vehicle/track interaction. The vehicle and the track are coupled by wheel/rail contacts whereas the normal forces and the creep forces are calculated using the Hertzian contact theory and the nonlinear creep theory by Shen et al., respectively. The equations of motion of the coupled vehicle/track system are solved by means of an explicit integration method. A tangent track buckle is simulated with a cosine function, which describes the misalignment of the track with different lengths due to its buckling. In the analysis the effects of the buckle wavelength and amplitude and of the vehicle speed on the dynamic behavior of the coupled vehicle/track system are considered. The present paper analyzes in detail the conventional derailment coefficients which include the ratio of the wheel/rail lateral force to the vertical force, the wheel load reduction, and the new criteria indicating the wheel/rail contact point traces and the wheel rise with respect to the rail. These criteria are simultaneously used to evaluate the risk of derailment of the whole vehicle. The numerical results obtained indicate that the track misalignment caused by the buckle and the vehicle speed have a great influence on the whole vehicle running safety when the vehicle passes through the buckled tangent track.     

基于多体系统动力学和有限元法的联合仿真在车桥耦合振动研究中的应用*

为了实现车桥耦合振动精细化仿真研究,利用多体系统动力学软件SIMPACK建立完整的车辆空间模型,采用空间杆系和板壳混合单元有限元方法建立桥梁的动力分析模型;然后将车辆和桥梁两个子系统在轮轨接触面离散的信息点上进行数据交换,实现车桥耦合振动联合仿真分析。以高速铁路上的简支梁桥为研究对象,采用基于多体系统动力学和有限元法结合的联合仿真技术,计算了弹性轮轨接触时动车组列车以不同车速通过桥梁的空间耦合振动响应,证明了该研究方法的可行性。     

A numerical method for prediction of curved rail wear

Important published papers on rail wear in the past were reviewed. A numerical method was put forward to predict curved rail wear during a railway vehicle curving. The numerical method was discussed in detail. It considered a combination of Kalker’s non-Hertzian rolling contact theory, rail material wear model, the coupling dynamics of the vehicle and track, and the three-dimensional contact geometry analysis of wheel-rail. In its numerical implementation, the dynamical parameters of all the parts of the vehicle and track, such as normal loads and creepages of the wheels and rails, were firstly obtained through the curving dynamics analysis. The wheel-rail contact geometry calculation gave the wheel-rail contact geometry parameters, which were used in the wheel-rail rolling contact calculation with Kalker’s non-Hertzian rolling contact theory modified. The friction work densities on the contact areas of the wheels and rails were obtained in the rolling contact calculation, and were used to predict the rail running surface wears caused by the multiple wheels of the vehicle simultaneously with the rail material wear model. In the rail material wear model, it was assumed that the mass loss of each unit area was proportional to the frictional work density in the contact area. A numerical example was present to verify the present method. The numerical results of the example are reasonable, and indicate that the high rail wear of the curved track caused by the leading wheelset is much more serious than those caused by the other three wheels of the same bogie.     

变轨距货车转向架的动力学分析

建立了考虑轮轴间隙的三大件式变轨距货车转向架动力学模型,研究车辆在准轨和宽轨线路上的动力学性能和LM踏面在不同轨距线路上的轮轨接触关系.考虑轨距为1435mm和1520mm、轨底坡为1/40和1/20、标准和打磨后的多种钢轨廓形与LM踏面匹配,发现LM踏面对两种轨底坡的兼容性较好,而踏面磨耗后对轨底坡变化较敏感;LM踏面在准轨线路上对轮轴横向间隙比较敏感,而在宽轨线路上则不存在这个问题.轮轴之间的横向和旋转间隙会导致车辆临界速度降低,建议控制间隙在0.6mm和0.5mrad以内;轮轴间隙不影响车辆运行安全性和平稳性,且在准轨和宽轨线路上的动力学指标基本无差异.变轨距车辆运行过程中,轮轨横向力和纵向蠕滑力会导致轮轴横向间隙和旋转间隙动态变化,变化量为间隙值;给出轮轴间隙与轮轨载荷的正态分布统计,发现轮轴间隙载荷与轮轨载荷相当.     

高速铁道车辆悬挂系统参数化建模、优化与仿真分析

为了协调高速铁道车辆的运动稳定性与曲线通过性能之间的矛盾,本文采用多目标优化方法对一种高速铁道车辆的关键悬挂参数进行了优化处理.采用多体动力学技术建立了某型高速铁道车辆62个自由度的动力学模型,模型考虑了轮轨接触几何非线性、轮轨蠕滑非线性和阻尼非线性等.采用ADAMS-Matlab联合仿真对车辆悬挂系统进行参数化改造,使弹簧刚度和阻尼系数均可调.采用基于遗传算法的多目标优化方法对悬挂参数进行优化,使车辆模型能同时满足3种动力学指标.对比优化前后模型的动力学性能可以发现:模型的运动稳定性和曲线通过性能得到显著提高,虽然运行平稳性有小幅降低,但仍能保持在优良的工作状态.     

柔性轮对结构振动对车辆动力学性能的影响

为研究轮对柔性对车辆动力学的影响,建立高速列车轮对的有限元模型,对轮对进行自由模态分析.通过模态综合法获取柔性轮对模态信息,应用多体系统动力学理论建立柔性轮对-刚性轨道接触力学模型;建立包含高速旋转柔性轮对的车辆-轨道耦合动力学模型,研究高速列车在直线和曲线通过时轮对结构振动对车辆动力学性能的影响.结果表明:轮对的结构振动对轮轨接触点位置、蠕滑率、蠕滑力和脱轨因数等均产生较明显的影响,但是对轮重减载率影响较小,因此应采用更加精确的柔性轮轨耦合模型研究轮轨相互作用、轮轨滚动接触疲劳和轮轨噪声等.     

基于梯度提升决策树的车轮轮缘厚度磨耗预测

轮对在列车走行过程中起着导向、承受以及传递载荷的作用，其踏面及轮缘磨耗对地铁列车运行安全性和钢轨的寿命都将产生重要影响。根据地铁列车车轮磨耗机理，分析车轮尺寸数据特点，针对轮缘厚度这一型面参数，基于梯度提升决策树算法构建轮缘厚度磨耗预测模型。在该模型的基础上，任意选取某轮对数据进行验证分析，结果表明：基于梯度提升决策树的轮对磨耗预测模型具有较好的预测精度，可预测出1~6个月的轮缘厚度变化趋势范围，预测时间范围较长，可为地铁维保部门对轮对的维修方式由状态修转为预防修提供指导性建议。     

基于不同线路条件下的车辆动力学性能分析

随着我国在既有线上的线路改造和载运量的不断增加,对线路参数的设计要求也随之提高。应用动力学方法建立车辆-轨道系统动力学模型,研究不同曲线半径和线路激励对车辆动力学性能的影响。研究结果表明：增加曲线半径有利于增加车辆曲线通过安全性,车辆经过曲线线路连接处时脱轨概率变大,驶入曲线时的脱轨系数明显高于驶出曲线,重点考虑曲线线路连接位置处的车辆通过速度以及车辆运行状态;适当增加曲线半径可以减少轮轨间磨耗,有效降低磨耗速度;轨道激励变化对车辆临界速度的影响较大,应根据实际运行工况模拟得出最佳临界速度范围。     

基于Gocator视觉传感器的轨头参数计算

轮轨间紧密接触使轨头轮廓产生不规则变化,传统钢轨检测方法主要测量钢轨的垂直磨耗和水平磨耗,不能全面反映钢轨横截面的轮廓信息。基于Gocator视觉传感器采集、拼接得到的完整轨头轮廓数据及标准钢轨轨头轮廓曲线解析式,提出计算轨头剩余面积、轨头45°角磨耗和轨头角度参数的计算方法。该方法通过传感器拼接得到的离散点数据,采用优化分段三次的拟合方法进行多项式拟合,依次对多项式积分得到整个轨头剩余面积;通过轨头45°角所在直线与测量轮廓的交点计算其磨耗;通过计算轨头圆弧相交点处切线斜率得到轨头角度。实验数据表明,在钢轨同一截面计算得到的参数误差小,精度高,计算速度快,这些参数的有效测量值为钢轨自动化打磨维护提供指导意义。     

A study on wear evaluation of railway wheels based on multibody dynamics and wear computation

The wear evolution of railway wheels is a very important issue in railway engineering. In the past, the reprofiling intervals of railway vehicle steel wheels have been scheduled according to designers’ experience. Today, more reliable and accurate tools in predicting wheel wear evolution and wheelset lifetime can be used in order to achieve economical and safety benefits. In this work, a computational tool that is able to predict the evolution of the wheel profiles for a given railway system, as a function of the distance run, is presented. The strategy adopted consists of using a commercial multibody software to study the railway dynamic problem and a purpose-built code for managing its pre- and post-processing data in order to compute the wear. The tool is applied here to realistic operation scenarios in order to assess the effect of some service conditions on the wheel wear progression.     

An innovative degraded adhesion model for multibody applications in the railway field

The simulation of the braking maneuver of a railway vehicle under degraded adhesion conditions is very important concerning the safety of railway operation. However, the implementation of a realistic friction law is comparatively difficult because of the complex and nonlinear behavior of the wheel-rail contact. Particularly under degraded adhesion conditions, very high creepages occur, which cause sliding in the contact. This sliding produces a high dissipation of energy, which has a cleaning effect on the rolling surfaces, and thereby strengthens the influence of the adhesion. In this work, this energetic criterion has been studied. The authors suggest implementing an innovative friction law to the simulation of railway multibody models with 3D multi-point contact detection algorithms. As a benchmark case, the braking of a coach equipped with a Wheel Slide Protection (WSP) system is simulated. The results are compared with experimental data available from previous testing activities by Trenitalia. The new friction law provides to match the experimental reference results and to carry out simulated braking tests, including the working WSP system, which comply with the current regulations (Railway applications, braking, wheel slide protection, UNI EN 15595, 2009).     

Wheel-rail contact elements incorporating irregularities

The aim of this study is to simulate the dynamic vertical response of a vehicle traversing rigid rails and a railway bridge. This is achieved by using the authors' wheel-rail contact element (WRC) to model the dynamic interaction that exists between a sprung wheel, using a Hertzian spring, and the rail. The objective in creating these elements was to model the rail and wheel irregularities, which was not a feature of the contact elements within the ANSYS finite element program. In this paper the numerical results generated using the authors' WRC element are identical to the results generated using the commercial contact element of ANSYS for a smooth rail condition. In the case of irregular rails, the numerical results generated using the authors' WRC elements compare very favourably with the results from the literature.     

空气弹簧在100%低地板轻轨车上应用可行性分析*

基于多体动力学仿真软件SIMPACK,对某型采用纵向耦合边驱电机转向架的100%低地板轻轨车三模块编组建模,在MATLAB/Simulink中对其中央悬挂部件空气弹簧的主气室、节流孔、附加气室建模.对100%低地板轻轨车运行工况进行设定,通过联合仿真的方式对空气弹簧在100%低地板轻轨车上应用可行性进行分析,得到:1)空气弹簧应用到100%低地板车上后,车辆蛇行失稳临界速度为149km/h,大于设计时速,车辆有较好的运行稳定性.2)车辆运行时,平稳性及最大加速度指标均小于2.5,车辆有较好的运行平稳性.3)车辆通过小半径曲线时,轮重减载率、脱轨系数、轮轴横向力、轮轨横向力指标均小于评判标准限值,车辆有较好的曲线通过能力.4)空气弹簧在通过工况设定的小半径曲线时,各项性能指标均符合该型空气弹簧技术标准,空气弹簧在100%低地板轻轨车上应用可行.