Performance Limits of Rail Passenger Vehicles: Conventional, Radial, and Innovative Trucks

摘要

The dynamic performance capability of conventional, radial, and innovative passenger trucks is identified and optimized with respect to ride quality, stability, and curve negotiation. The conventional truck's secondary suspension is optimized to provide improved secondary lateral stroke length/lateral acceleration trade-offs. The primary and secondary yaw suspension and wheelset conicity were optimized to provide improved lateral stability/curving capabilities. Radial truck primary and interwheelset suspension parameters were optimized to obtain improved stability/curving performance over the conventional truck. Parametric charts in terms of interwheelset bending and shear stiffness are presented for critical speed and degree curve performance indices. A comparison between optimized conventional and radial trucks is made to determine the level of performance improvements offered by the radial truck. It is shown that in general a symmetric truck/wheelset combination can have a maximum of six independent lateral suspension parameters. Thus the conventional (two) and the radial (4) are special cases of the six parameter truck. Parameter charts are presented to illustrate the influence of the two new suspension parameters.