Design and performance analysis of the hydropneumatic suspension system for a novel road-rail vehicle

Abstract

Road-rail vehicles built on traditional vehicle chassis can only switch operation modes at particular areas such as level crossings, thus limiting the working scope and efficiency of routine railway inspection and maintenance. This paper proposes a novel tracked chassis for the road-rail vehicle with a multi-cylinder hydropneumatic suspension system, which can better adapt to rough terrains and enhance the vehicle ride performance. Based on this hydropneumatic suspension design, the single-cylinder mathematical model is derived and validated by experimental data. An in-plane multi-body dynamics (MBD) model and road model are established, combined with the hydropneumatic suspension model, including the LuGre friction force. Virtual tests are conducted to investigate the effects of different initial gas volumes, varied diameters and damping pipe lengths on the ride performance. The results indicate that improper damping pipe diameter and charge gas volume will deteriorate the ride performance, which provides a useful reference for the optimization design and control of the hydropneumatic system.