Optimizing Reduced Values of Switch Rails during the Service Time of High-Speed Railway Turnouts

Abstract

The turnout is a vital railway infrastructure. Setting reasonable reduced values of the switch rail is the key to ensuring high stability and security when a vehicle passes a turnout. Poor reduced value condition leads to a car body swing or even derailment. To improve the turnout performance and reduce maintenance costs, of great importance is studying the reduced value. However, the current research did not consider wear rail profiles, and most optimizations were based on the given reduced values. Therefore, to promote dynamic performances as a vehicle passes through the turnout and to improve the traditional optimization method for the reduced value, the following investigations were carried out in this study. First, the tracking measurement of the rail profiles was conducted, and the variation law of the rail wear and the reduced value were analyzed. Further, based on the vehicle-turnout coupled model, an optimization model for the reduced value of the switch rail by the multi-island genetic algorithm was proposed. This model aims to minimize the dynamic responses. The objective functions of a vehicle passing a turnout in the main and diverging route were determined under the constraint conditions of the monotonicity of the reduced values. Finally, the optimizations were carried out in cases in which a vehicle passes on the main and diverging routes. The optimal results indicate that, after optimization, the objective function for the main and diverging routes decreased by 33.66% and 11.92%, respectively, illustrating the effectiveness of the optimization model.