Lateral Stability Behavior of Railway Freight Car System With Elasto-Damper Coupled Wheelset: Part 2—Truck Model

Abstract

To investigate the effect of elasto-damper coupled wheelset (EDCW), on the lateral stability behavior of freight cars, a railway freight truck model with two EDCW and pseudo-car body has been developed. The results of linearized stability analysis showed, that for small values of wheelset coupler stiffness, damping has significant influence on the stability behavior of wheelset relative spin as well as wheelset and truck lateral modes. The results further showed that, by utilizing an optimal EDCW coupler parameter, the critical speeds corresponding to truck hunting and wheelset lateral mode can be made equal. In doing so, the truck hunting critical speed on tangent track can be improved by over 100 percent in comparison to truck model with conventional rigid axle wheelsets.