Interaction of Elastic Wheelsets and Elastic Rails: Modelling and Simulation

Kurzfassung

Today, the simulation of the running behaviour of railway vehicles is usually carried out on the base of a multi-body system approach and under the assumption that the wheelsets and the rails are rigid bodies. Considering the strongly nonlinear characteristics of the wheel-rail contact which can be very sensitive even to small relative shifts, the question arises, whether elastic deformations of the wheelsets and the rails can have an influence on this contact and thereby on the running behaviour of the entire vehicle. Moreover, for a description of the vehicle-track interaction in the higher frequency range in which phenomena like noise and wear are located, the consideration of the structural dynamics of the wheelsets and the rails is essential. First, a simulation model of a railway vehicle is presented with special focus on the modelling of the wheelsets and rails as elastic bodies and their coupling by a nonlinear wheel-rail contact. Finally, the impact of these structural elasticities on the running behaviour of the vehicle is investigated; as an example, their influence on the critical speed and the limit cycle behaviour is presented.