The importance of kinematics accuracy in modelling the dynamics of rail vehicle moving in a curved track with variable velocity

The paper is devoted to accurate description of kinematics of rail vehicle in its motion along curved track with variable velocity. Failing to do this description properly means inaccurate determination of inertia terms in the dynamical equations of motion. Determining how important are these terms is the paper’s main objective. Simulation results from complete model that includes all inertia terms arising from motion of the track centre-line based reference frames and from incomplete models with such terms selectively omitted are compared. The comparison proved particular significance of the omitted terms for vehicle moving along transition curves with variable velocity.