Analysis on running safety considering the difference of coefficients of friction in a railway bogie (Comparison between experiment and numerical simulation of the roller-rig test)

Abstract

It is important to secure running safety of railway vehicles against wheel-climb derailment accidents. The safety is often discussed according to the value of derailment coefficients for the leading outside wheel of a railway bogie running on sharp curves. Therefore, the detailed force induced mechanism which influences the value of derailment coefficients should be clarified. One of the most dominant factors affecting the value of derailment coefficients is magnitudes of the coefficient of friction (COF) between wheel and rail. Since the gauge corner of the outer rail and the top of the inner rail are lubricated at some sharp curves, COF of wheels of a bogie are different from each other and show complicated variation. In this study, the effect of lubrication for the running safety of the railway bogie is investigated while considering the detailed force induced mechanism of the derailment coefficient increase utilizing both multibody dynamics simulations and experiments. Experiments and simulations are conducted with a roller-rig test equipment under various conditions of wheel/rail lubrication. In this research, a method to identify whether the bogie is in suitably lubricated condition in terms of running safety is discussed. The proposed method making use of the longitudinal force measurement with mono-link type axle supporting device is mentioned.