Control of Air Suspension to Prevent Wheel Load Reduction at Transition Curve Negotiation

摘要

This paper presents a new concept control device of air suspension system of railway vehicle to prevent wheel load reduction at transition curve negotiation. Automatic Leveling Valve (LV) of air suspension system causes severe unbalance of wheel load at transition curve negotiation. Especially when low speed running at exit transition curve, air suspension system encourages the wheel load reduction at the first axle at high rail side that caused by gradual decrease of super-elevation. This reduction of wheel load causes increase of derailment coefficient, the ratio of lateral and vertical contact force between wheel and rail. And margin of tight curve passing safety becomes smaller. We proposed a control device that manipulates LV to control the air suspension to prevent wheel load reduction. We also proposed a new concept of changing the air flow characteristic of LV to promote the control performance. We realized this 2-step air flow characteristic by paralleling a normal LV and an experimental manufactured large air flow LV. Using this 2-step LV, we obtained a better control performance by bench experiment.