Optimal Simple Span Lengths for Flexible Guideways

In the design of elevated vehicle/guideway systems several parameters play important roles in the dynamic performance. The vehicle inertial and suspension properties, guideway mass per unit length, span length, structural damping characteristics and surface finish tolerances are important factors. The two most important dynamic phenomena which require accommodation in the system design are vehicle suspension resonance and guideway beam resonance. For a given system configuration there exists an optimal span length which will yield the best dynamic performance. Furthermore, there exist critical ranges of span lengths, shorter than the optimum span, which will cause resonant guideway and vehicle vertical oscillations unless much stiffer guideway sections are used. A detailed dynamic assessment of the optimum simply supported guideway span length is presented. The effects of all parameters to the system performance are examined and critical parametric combinations are identified for a practical design example of vehicle/guideway system.