Adhesion estimation at the wheel–rail interface using advanced model-based filtering

The railway industry in the UK is currently expanding the use of condition monitoring of railway vehicles. These systems can be used to improve maintenance procedures or could potentially be used to monitor current vehicle running conditions without the use of cost prohibitive sensors. This paper looks at a novel method for the online detection of areas of low adhesion in the wheel/rail contact that cause significant disruption to the running of a network, particularly in the autumn season. The proposed method uses a Kalman–Bucy filter to estimate the creep forces in the wheel–rail contact area; post-processing is then applied to provide information indicative of the actual adhesion level. The algorithm uses data that, in practice, would be available from a set of modest cost inertial sensors mounted on the vehicle bogie and wheel-sets. The efficacy of the approach is demonstrated using simulation data from a nonlinear dynamic model of the vehicle and its track interface.     

Indirect method for wheel–rail force measurement and derailment evaluation

Wheel set flange derailment criteria for railway vehicles are derived and the influence of wheel–rail contact parameters is studied. An indirect method for wheel–rail force measurement based on these derailment evaluation criteria is proposed. Laboratory tests for the calibration of strain–force devices on the bearing box are carried out to determine the relationship between the applied force and the measured strain. The simulation package, SIMPACK, is used to develop a passenger car model to generate wheel–rail forces and vibration signals. Different cases are considered in this model to provide an accurate validation of the identified wheel–rail forces. A feasibility test is conducted in the Beijing Loop test line using a passenger car equipped with a set of strain gauges on the wheel set. The comparison of the force time history applied to the instrumented wheel set and that obtained using the indirect method is presented.     

Vibration control in train–bridge–track systems

To study the problems associated with vibration control of train–bridge–track systems a mathematical model with the capability of representing supplementary vibrational control devices is proposed. The train system is assumed as rigid bodies supported on double-deck suspension mechanism with semi-active features. The bridge system is modeled using the modal approach. Vibration control for bridge responses is provided by tuned mass dampers. A non-classical incremental Eigen analysis is proposed to trace the system characteristics across the time. In an example, the capability of the proposed model in investigating the vibration control prospects of a bridge–train system is shown. The results indicate the effectiveness of active suspension mechanism in reducing train's body movements, particularly the pitching angle and the vertical accelerations. Accordingly, the results also verify the potential of TMD devices in reducing the bridge responses at resonance motions.     

Vertical random vibration analysis of vehicle–track coupled system using Green's function method

A vertical vehicle–track coupled dynamic model, consisting of a high-speed train on a continuously supported rail, is established in the frequency-domain. The solution is obtained efficiently by use of the Green's function method, which can determine the vibration response over a wide range of frequency without any limitations due to modal truncation. Moreover, real track irregularity spectra can be used conveniently as input. The effect of the flexibility of both track and car body on the entire vehicle–track coupled dynamic response is investigated. A multi-body model of a vehicle with either rigid or flexible car body is defined running on three kinds of track: a rigid rail, a track stiffness model and a Timoshenko beam model. The results show that neglecting the track flexibility leads to an overestimation of both the contact force and the whole vehicle vibration response. The car body flexibility affects the ride quality of the vehicle and the coupling through the track and can be significant in certain frequency ranges. Finally, the effect of railpad and ballast stiffness on the vehicle–track coupled vibration is analysed, indicating that the stiffness of the railpad has an influence on the system in a higher frequency range than the ballast.     

Dynamic model for the wheel–rail contact friction

Accurately estimating the coefficient of friction (CoF) is essential in modelling railroad dynamics, reducing maintenance costs, and increasing safety in rail operations. The typical assumption of a constant CoF is widely used in theoretical studies; however, it has been noticed that the CoF is not constant, but rather depends on various dynamic parameters and instantaneous conditions. In this paper, we present a newly developed three-dimensional nonlinear CoF model for the dry rail condition and test the CoF variation using this model with estimated dynamic parameters. The wheel–rail is modelled as a mass–spring–damper system to simulate the basic wheel–rail dynamics. Although relatively simple, this model is considered sufficient for the purpose of this study. Simulations are performed at a train speed of 20 m/s using rail roughness as an excitation source. The model captures the CoF extremes and illustrates its nonlinear behaviour and instantaneous dependence on several structural and dynamic parameters.     

Geometric design safety estimation based on tire–road side friction

A closed-loop drive–vehicle–road–environment system (DVRES) model was established using Adams/Car and Matlab/Simulink. Dynamic responses of lateral tire forces based on tire–road side friction and road geometric characteristics are used to investigate vehicle side slip for geometric design safety estimation. The root mean square, the maximum values of lateral tire forces, comfort limit on curves and vehicle trajectories are used to quantify the safety margin of side friction. The simulation results show that the safety margins of lateral tire forces for radius, operating speed and superelevation rate were 18.2%, 19.3% and 17.6%, respectively, to guarantee good vehicle lateral reliability and ride comfort, while lower speeds are optimal in wet and slippery roads. Finally, a case study was conducted to illustrate the analysis of road design safety, and on-site experiment testing further validated the accuracy and reliability of the closed-loop DVRES model.     

Influence of uneven rail irregularities on the dynamic response of the railway track using a three-dimensional model of the vehicle–track system

A mathematical model of the vehicle–track interaction is developed to investigate the coupled behaviour of vehicle–track system, in the presence of uneven irregularities at left/right rails. The railway vehicle is simplified as a 3D multi-rigid-body model, and the track is treated as the two parallel beams on a layered discrete support system. Besides the car-body, the bogies and the wheel sets, the sleepers are assumed to have roll degree of freedom, in order to simulate the in-plane rotation of the components. The wheel–rail interface is treated using a nonlinear Hertzian contact model, coupling the mathematical equations of the vehicle–track systems. The dynamic interaction of the entire system is numerically studied in time domain, employing Newmark's integration method. The track irregularity spectra of both the left/right rails are taken into account, as the inputs of dynamic excitations. The dynamic responses of the track system induced by such irregularities are obtained, particularly in terms of the vertical (bounce) and roll displacements. The numerical model of the present research is validated using several benchmark models reported in the literature, for both the smooth and unsmooth track conditions. Four sample profiles of the measured rail irregularities are considered as the case studies of excitation sources, examining their influences on the dynamic behaviour of the coupled system. The results of numerical simulations demonstrate that the motion of track system is significantly influenced by the presence of uneven irregularities in left/right rails. Dynamic response of the sleepers in the roll direction becomes more sensitive to the rail irregularities, as the unevenness severity of the parallel profiles (quantitative difference between left and right rail spectra) is increased. The severe geometric deformation of the track in the bounce–pitch–roll directions is mainly related to such profile unevenness (cross-level) in left/right rails.     

Influence of some vehicle and track parameters on the environmental vibrations induced by railway traffic

A study is performed on the influence of some typical railway vehicle and track parameters on the level of ground vibrations induced in the neighbourhood. The results are obtained from a previously validated simulation framework considering in a first step the vehicle/track subsystem and, in a second step, the response of the soil to the forces resulting from the first analysis. The vehicle is reduced to a simple vertical 3-dof model, corresponding to the superposition of the wheelset, the bogie and the car body. The rail is modelled as a succession of beam elements elastically supported by the sleepers, lying themselves on a flexible foundation representing the ballast and the subgrade. The connection between the wheels and the rails is realised through a non-linear Hertzian contact. The soil motion is obtained from a finite/infinite element model. The investigated vehicle parameters are its type (urban, high speed, freight, etc.) and its speed. For the track, the rail flexural stiffness, the railpad stiffness, the spacing between sleepers and the rail and sleeper masses are considered. In all cases, the parameter value range is defined from a bibliographic browsing. At the end, the paper proposes a table summarising the influence of each studied parameter on three indicators: the vehicle acceleration, the rail velocity and the soil velocity. It namely turns out that the vehicle has a serious influence on the vibration level and should be considered in prediction models.     

Dynamic diurnal social taxonomy of urban environments using data from a geocoded time use activity-travel diary and point-based business establishment inventory

In this paper, we explore the diurnal dynamics of joint activity participation in a small city in Pennsylvania, USA, using behavioral data and an inventory of business establishments. We account for the variation caused by the collective impact of social, temporal and spatial choices of individuals to produce predicted space–time visualizations of activity participation. The focus is on how social contexts of an activity impact the temporal and spatial decisions regarding the activity locations and how this impact varies depending on activity types. A comparison across activity types and social interaction types is made among spatial patterns during a day. The CentreSIM dataset, which is a household-based activity diary survey collected in Centre County (Pennsylvania, USA) in 2003, provides very detailed social interaction information enabling the analysis of social, spatial and temporal aspects of activity participation. In this paper we use this information to develop a spatio-temporal interpolation method and demonstration based on kriging. In this way, we extract the dynamic social taxonomy of places from the behavioral information in the dataset and suggest how urban and transportation models can be informed from the dynamics of places by observing “what is taking place” (activities being pursued in the context of this paper) combined with “what exists” (business establishments) or “what is available” (businesses that are open). The method here can also be used to improve the design of urban environments (e.g., filling gaps in desired activity locations), manage specific places (e.g., extending the opening and closing times of businesses), study transportation policies that are sensitive to time of day (e.g., pricing of parking to discourage crowding and traffic congestion), and modeling of spatio-temporal decisions of social activities in travel demand models (e.g., to guide the development of model specification and representation of the space in which behavioral models are applied).     

A robust non-Hertzian contact method for wheel–rail normal contact analysis

A modified Kik–Piotrowski (MKP) model is proposed in this paper for an accurate and robust calculation of wheel–rail normal contact problem. The presented method is able to consider the relationship between the elastic deformation of a line and the normal pressure distribution within the contact patch. A novel shape correction method is put forward to correctly describe the elastic deformation of the contact patch. Taking the results estimated by Kalker’s variational method and Kik–Piotrowski method as references, the proposed method is validated by three contact cases, including the assumed standardised non-Hertzian contact and the two-point contact, as well as the contact behaviours based on three actual wheel–rail profiles. The simulation results indicate that, compared with Kik–Piotrowski method, the proposed MKP method achieves better agreement with Kalker’s variational method. Moreover, the MKP method can avoid the abrupt change of wheel–rail normal force due to the sudden transfer of the contact point, which contributes to a better computational stability.