Rail vehicle passing through a turnout: analysis of different turnout designs and wheel profiles

In recent years, different systems have been developed in order to improve the dynamic behaviour of railway vehicles when passing through turnouts. Some of these improvements consist in varying the geometry of the switch itself and including moveable crossing vees. It is worth mentioning that they are designed by taking a certain wheel profile into consideration, i.e. it is assumed that the wheel profile does not change. The objective of the current study is to determine the influence that the turnout design has on vehicle dynamics, as well as the influence that the variability in wheel profiles can have on the effectiveness of the different systems. In order to do this, the MBS software Simpack was used to model one vehicle with two different turnouts and four different profiles. The results show that the geometrical design of the turnout has a critical influence on the vehicle/turnout. We also concluded that the wheel profile does not have a significant influence when the vehicle passes through turnouts.

[1]  W. Schöch,et al.  Essais chez les Chemins de fer Fédéraux Autrichiens avec des profils de rails asymétriques dans des courbes étroites , 1990 .

[2]  C Andersson,et al.  Wheel/rail impacts at a railway turnout crossing , 1998 .

[3]  Chris Jones,et al.  A REVIEW OF THE MODELLING OF WHEEL/RAIL NOISE GENERATION , 2000 .

[4]  C Esveld,et al.  Relation between the geometry of rail welds and the dynamic wheel - rail response: Numerical simulations for measured welds , 2006 .

[5]  Simon Iwnicki,et al.  The Manchester Benchmarks for Rail Vehicle Simulation , 1998 .

[6]  Jens C. O. Nielsen,et al.  Dynamic interaction between train and railway turnout: full-scale field test and validation of simulation models , 2008 .

[7]  Tore Dahlberg,et al.  Load Impacts at Railway Turnout Crossing , 2021, The Dynamics of Vehicles on Roads and on Tracks.

[8]  Francisco González,et al.  Use of active steering in railway bogies to reduce rail corrugation on curves , 2007 .

[9]  Jens C. O. Nielsen,et al.  Geometry and stiffness optimization for switches and crossings, and simulation of material degradation , 2010 .

[10]  Geert Smet,et al.  MULTI-BODY DYNAMICS SOFTWARE TOOL: TWO CASE STUDIES , 2009 .

[11]  Stefano Bruni,et al.  Effects of train impacts on urban turnouts: Modelling and validation through measurements , 2009 .

[12]  Clive Roberts,et al.  Development of a common set of European high-level track maintenance cost categories , 2010 .

[13]  Michaël J.M.M. Steenbergen,et al.  Quantification of dynamic wheel–rail contact forces at short rail irregularities and application to measured rail welds , 2008 .

[14]  M. R. Bugarín,et al.  Improvements in railway switches , 2002 .

[15]  Michaël J.M.M. Steenbergen,et al.  The role of the contact geometry in wheel–rail impact due to wheel flats: Part II , 2007 .

[16]  Arne Nissen.  Classification and cost analysis of switches and crossings for the Swedish railway: a case study , 2009 .

[17]  L. Mauer,et al.  The Manchester Benchmarks : SIMPACK statement of methods , 1999 .