Numerical studies on aerodynamics of high-speed railway train subjected to strong crosswind

Abstract

Under the action of strong crosswind, the aerodynamic behavior of a rail vehicle at high speed will be changed significantly, which could directly affect the safe operation of the vehicle. With the help of the shape of train used in China, the aerodynamic characteristics of trains with scale of 1:1 is investigated using computational fluid dynamics numerical simulation method, which consists of the variation of aerodynamics force and moment with wind yaw angle, wind speed, train speed, and nose shape. After an initial validation against Baker’s results from wind tunnel test, the numerical model is then used to investigate the aerodynamic characteristics of the trains. The numerical results indicate that lift coefficient of the M train is slightly higher than TMC1 and TMC2 trains. Regardless of aerodynamics force coefficients, TMC1 reaches the maximum at a yaw angle of 75°. Aerodynamics force coefficient increases with both wind speed and train speed, but the change of which is not linear. Comparing aerodynamic force with different geometric dimensions of train nose, it is shown that height–width ratio is insensitive to side force and rolling moment, but sensitive to lift force from the yaw angle 0°–90°. The side force coefficient, as we most concern, is less than other results, when the length–width ratio is 1 and height–width is 0.87.