Simulation and Control of Wheel Flange Climbing Derailment Using Actuators
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Date
2016-11
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
This research explores how active actuation systems can affect rail vehicle dynamics,
using a combined multibody simulation and experimental verification strategy. The research
addresses an important issue concerning vehicle-track interaction, particularly large vibrations,
instabilities in wheel-rail contact forces, and potential derailment, as each of these factors
critically impact ride quality, safety operations, and maintenance costs. The methodology
contrasts multibody dynamics modeling with experimental validation of key metrics, such as
accelerations of the car body and bogie, wheel-rail contact forces, derailment coefficients, wheel
lift, attack angles, and spectral vibration characteristics. The simulation-based evaluation
compares system performance with and without active control under various operational
conditions. The paper will demonstrate the capability of active control to mitigate harmful rail
vehicle dynamics. The findings indicate significant improvements across all assessed measures.
Active control leads to a 52% improvement in vertical car body acceleration (from 0.076 m/s² to
0.0375 m/s²) and a 35.7% improvement in lateral acceleration (0.28 m/s² to 0.18 m/s²), markedly
improving ride comfort and stability. The wheel-rail contact forces are reduced by 1.3%
vertically (73.75 kN to 72.8 kN) and laterally 3.6% (8.9 kN to 8.3 kN), which improves wear
characteristics and longevity of components. The derailment coefficient is lower by 4.3% (0.115
to 0.11), improving the safety margin, and wheel lift is lower by 2.1% (375×10⁻⁶ m to 367×10⁻⁶
m), facilitating better contact stability. Spectral analysis reveals that active control shifts resonant
frequencies down (e.g. from 9.67 Hz to 8.75 Hz) for car body vibrations and simultaneously
reduces amplitudes, which signifies that well-targeted vibration suppression is achievable within
critical frequency bands. These results give strong support to advance the implementation of
active actuation in rail systems, especially in high-speed applications where dynamic
performance is important. We showed that active control improves safety, comfort, and
maintenance efficiency; furthermore, it also validated both theoretical and experimental models
in our study. These results provide a practical basis to use active suspension in future rail
vehicles.
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Keywords
Active Actuator, vehicle-dynamics, Wheel/rail interaction, Vibration, Derailment coefficient, Multibody -simulation.