Active yaw damper for the improvement of railway vehicle stability and curving performances: simulations and experimental results

To further increase passenger train comfort and handling performances, a mechatronic approach to the design of railway vehicles is necessary. In fact, active systems on board a railway vehicle allow to push design barriers beyond those encountered with just passive systems. The article deals with the development of an electro-mechanical actuator to improve the running behaviour of a railway vehicle, both in straight track and curve. The main components of the active system are a brushless motor and a mechanical transmission, used to apply a longitudinal force between the carbody and the bogie of the vehicle. The actuator is operated in force control. Different control strategies were developed for straight track running, where the aim is to increase the vehicle critical speed, and for curve negotiation, where the goal is to reduce the maximum values of track shift forces. A mathematical model of the railway vehicle incorporating the active control device has been developed and used to optimise control strategies and hardware set-up of the active device and to estimate the increase in operating performances with respect to a conventional passive vehicle. The active control device has then been mounted on an ETR470 railway vehicle, and its performances have been evaluated during in-line tests in both straight and curved tracks.     

Home-work carpooling for social mixing

Transportation - Shared mobility is widely recognized for its contribution in reducing carbon footprint, traffic congestion, parking needs and transportation-related costs in urban and suburban...     

High Speed Railway: Collecting Pantographs Active Control and Overhead Lines Diagnostic Solutions

The catenary-pantograph system and its dynamic behaviour play a decisive role for high speed trains from the power collecting point of view. The decisive criterion for assessing the contact quality is to reduce the contact force variability as far as possible. In this paper active pantograph elements are introduced in order to improve the system performance. The control strategy is based on Extended Kalman Filter technique, used to get a contact force estimation available for control feedback. The same estimation procedure based on the Extended Kalman Filter is also used to obtain some information useful to overhead line diagnostic purposes.     

Numerical Model of a Tilting Body Railway Vehicle Compared With Rig and on Track Tests

The aim of the paper is to describe and verify a numerical model for the simulation of the dynamic behaviour of a tilting body railway vehicle, with particular attention to the curve negotiation conditions. In the model the dynamics of the tilting active control devices are reproduced, combining the numerical mechanical model of the vehicle with the control software used on the real vehicle. In order to validate the numerical simulation model, numerical results and experimental ones, from both a test rig and out-door tests, were compared.     

Estimation of the Non-Linear Suspension Tyre Cornering Forces from Experimental Road Test Data

The paper discusses the application to real data of an identification procedure based on an Extended Kalman Filter, for estimating the equivalent non-linear suspension tyre cornering forces of a road vehicle from a single standard manoeuvre. In particular, both the steady-state and the dynamic handling characteristics can be evaluated.