Study regarding the dynamic loads upon the track at failure of the dampers in the primary suspension of the railway vehicle

Abstract

This paper investigates the dynamic loads on the track from a two-axle bogie, while considering the particular case of a failure in a damper in the suspension of an axle. To this purpose, a model of the bogie-track system is taken into account, which looks at the track elasticity, the contact of the wheel-rail, and the bounce and pitch vertical vibrations of the bogie. The study relies on the results from numerical simulations concerning the dynamic wheel-rail contact forces, corresponding to one of the wheels, due to the failure in the damper. The dynamic wheel-rail contact forces generated during the running of a bogie on a track with vertical irregularities described by both a harmonic function and a pseudo-random function are being examined.