Derailment Experiment of Real Bogie Using Large Shaking Test Facility

We experimentally investigated the dynamics of railway vehicles, which derail from the top surface of a rail onto the ground, using full-scale models of one bogie and a half carbody on the large shaking test facility. The dynamics of derailing vehicle were as follows: 1) After a wheel leaved the top surface of a rail, the wheel firstly landed on the ground. 2) Then, the gear case next to the wheel hit the inner side surface of the rail. 3) Finally, the bogie slightly yawed and the L-shaped guide under the axlebox at the diagonal position of the gear case hit the outer side surface of the opposite rail. During the derailment, the maximum piston velocity of the lateral damper was about 0.6 m/s and the maximum action force of the L-shaped guide was about 60 kN. In addition, we numerically simulated the derailment of wheels using 3-DOF model. The numerical results were consistent with the experimental result about the falling time of wheels. Finally, we showed the relationship between wheel deviation speed and landing position when the wheel derails from rail surface onto real concrete slab surface.