Insights into vehicle trajectories at the handling limits: analysing open data from race car drivers

Race car drivers can offer insights into vehicle control during extreme manoeuvres; however, little data from race teams is publicly available for analysis. The Revs Program at Stanford has built a collection of vehicle dynamics data acquired from vintage race cars during live racing events with the intent of making this database publicly available for future analysis. This paper discusses the data acquisition, post-processing, and storage methods used to generate the database. An analysis of available data quantifies the repeatability of professional race car driver performance by examining the statistical dispersion of their driven paths. Certain map features, such as sections with high path curvature, consistently corresponded to local minima in path dispersion, quantifying the qualitative concept that drivers anchor their racing lines at specific locations around the track. A case study explores how two professional drivers employ distinct driving styles to achieve similar lap times, supporting the idea that driving at the limits allows a family of solutions in terms of paths and speed that can be adapted based on specific spatial, temporal, or other constraints and objectives.     

Design of tyre force excitation for tyre–road friction estimation

Knowledge of the current tyre–road friction coefficient is essential for future autonomous vehicles. The environmental conditions, and the tyre–road friction in particular, determine both the braking distance and the maximum cornering velocity and thus set the boundaries for the vehicle. Tyre–road friction is difficult to estimate during normal driving due to low levels of tyre force excitation. This problem can be solved by using active tyre force excitation. A torque is added to one or several wheels in the purpose of estimating the tyre–road friction coefficient. Active tyre force excitation provides the opportunity to design the tyre force excitation freely. This study investigates how the tyre force should be applied to minimise the error of the tyre–road friction estimate. The performance of different excitation strategies was found to be dependent on both tyre model choice and noise level. Furthermore, the advantage with using tyre models with more parameters decreased when noise was added to the force and slip ratio.     

The Kalker book of tables for non-Hertzian contact of wheel and rail

A new regularisation of non-elliptical contact patches has been introduced, which enables building the look-up table called by us the Kalker book of tables for non-Hertzian contact (KBTNH), which is a fast creep force generator that can be used by multibody dynamics system simulation programs. The non-elliptical contact patch is regularised by a simple double-elliptical contact region (SDEC). The SDEC region is especially suitable for regularisation of contact patches obtained with approximate non-Hertzian methods for solving the normal contact problem of wheel and rail. The new regularisation is suitable for wheels and rails with any profiles, including worn profiles.

The paper describes the new procedure of regularisation of the non-elliptical contact patch, the structure of the Kalker book of tables, and parameterisation of the independent variables of the tables and creep forces.

A moderate volume Kalker book of tables for SDEC region suitable for simulation of modern running gears has been computed in co-simulation of Matlab and program CONTACT.

To access the creep forces of the Kalker book of tables, the linear interpolation has been applied.

The creep forces obtained from KBTNH have been compared to those obtained by program CONTACT and FASTSIM algorithm. FASTSIM has been applied on both the contact ellipse and the SDEC contact patch. The comparison shows that KBTNH is in good agreement with CONTACT for a wide range of creepage condition and shapes of the contact patch, whereas the use of FASTSIM on the elliptical patch and SDEC may lead to significant deviations from the reference CONTACT solutions.

The computational cost of calling creep forces from KBTNH has been estimated by comparing CPU time of FASTSIM and KBTNH. The KBTNH is 7.8–51 times faster than FASTSIM working on 36–256 discretisation elements, respectively.

In the example of application, the KBTNH has been applied for curving simulations and results compared with those obtained with the creep force generator employing the elliptical regularisation. The results significantly differ, especially in predicted creepages, because the elliptical regularisation neglects generation of the longitudinal creep force by spin creepage.     

Dynamic simulation of train–truck collision at level crossings

Trains crashing onto heavy road vehicles stuck across rail tracks are more likely occurrences at level crossings due to ongoing increase in the registration of heavy vehicles and these long heavy vehicles getting caught in traffic after partly crossing the boom gate; these incidents lead to significant financial losses and societal costs. This paper presents an investigation of the dynamic responses of trains under frontal collision on road trucks obliquely stuck on rail tracks at level crossings. This study builds a nonlinear three-dimensional multi-body dynamic model of a passenger train colliding with an obliquely stuck road truck on a ballasted track. The model is first benchmarked against several train dynamics packages and its predictions of the dynamic response and derailment potential are shown rational. A geometry-based derailment assessment criterion is applied to evaluate the derailment behaviour of the frontal obliquely impacted trains under different conditions. Sensitivities of several key influencing parameters, such as the train impact speed, the truck mass, the friction at truck tyres, the train–truck impact angle, the contact friction at the collision zone, the wheel/rail friction and the train suspension are reported.     

基于系统动力学的大连市出租车保有量预测

采用系统动力学模型,找出影响出租车规模内外因素间的因果关系,包括经济、人口、机动车保有量、出行需求、政策等.在系统结构分析和因果反馈分析的基础上建立了出租车系统,以大连市出租车相关统计数据进行仿真计算,分析了不同的发展政策对出租车系统的影响,提出相应的建议和对策.     

船用桨后固定组合叶轮节能效果研究

船用桨后固定组合叶轮是一种新型螺旋桨节能装置。为了解其节能机理并验证节能效果,基于计算流体力学(CFD)方法对该问题进行研究。首先选用B4-65螺旋桨进行敞水数值模拟,验证计算模型和方法的正确性;然后重点对螺旋桨在加装桨后固定组合叶轮后的水动力性能进行模拟。结果表明:桨后固定组合叶轮能够较好地削弱螺旋桨后方的梢涡与毂涡,回收尾流能量。而且该节能装置能与螺旋桨产生有利干扰,增加桨叶上的推力。在低进速区(J0.4)时,该节能装置能达到2%以上的节能效果。     

大型船舶推进轴系扭振特性仿真和试验

基于多体动力学耦合理论结合有限元理论,以1艘大型船舶为研究对象,建立其推进轴系的刚柔耦合多体动力学仿真模型,对大型低转速推进轴系在工作中的扭振特性进行研究。在仿真计算的基础上,利用扭振测试系统对实船的扭振进行测量,并从多个谐次将轴系扭振的仿真计算值与试验测量值进行对比和分析。分析结果表明,通过仿真计算得到的轴系扭转振动变化趋势与实际测量值基本相符,验证了仿真模型的正确性和可行性。同时,通过Adams/Virbration模块分析了船体变形对轴系扭振的影响,证明了船体变形会导致轴系扭转振动增大。     

高速磁浮车辆垂直动力学仿真与平稳性研究

通过建立高速磁浮车辆的动力学模型,研究输入线路激励后车辆的运行平稳性和舒适度。通过对高速磁浮车辆的悬挂参数分析研究并优化,来评价车辆在不同速度下的运行平稳性和舒适度。在这些研究分析的基础上,对现有上海磁浮车辆的悬挂参数进行更为合理的优化设计,以实现磁浮车辆良好的平稳性和舒适度。     

列车动力响应的平稳性和各态历经性分析

研究列车动力响应的平稳性和各态历经性对寻求列车动力响应随机过程的统计规律具有重要意义.基于多体动力学理论,采用多体动力学分析软件Simpack建立国内某高速列车动车车辆的多体动力学模型.采用三角级数法模拟得到的轨道不平顺作为随机输入激励计算得到列车以不同速度行驶不同距离的动力响应时程样本序列.进一步运用平稳性检验方法中...     

轮对弹性对铁道车辆动力学性能仿真结果的影响

研究了轮对分别为弹性体和刚性体情况下客车的直线运行性能,模型中轮轨接触为非线性。仿真结果表明,轮对弹性对车辆运行性能具有显著影响,尤其降低了临界速度。