Comparative stability of bogie vehicles with passive and active guidance as influenced by friction and traction

Abstract

The stability of four bogie configurations is considered for a range of friction coefficients and traction ratios. The basis of comparison is the vehicle with conventional solid-axle railway wheelsets mounted in bogies with relatively stiff plan-view suspension. As improved performance of the wheelset in guidance can be achieved with various forms of passive and active guidance, bogies with yaw relaxation, with conventional wheelsets and active stabilisation and with independent wheels and active guidance are considered. Stability of each of these configurations is studied using a full nonlinear solution of the equations of motion. It is shown that the stability of the passive bogie configurations is very robust in the presence of traction and braking and variations of friction and that this is also true for an actively guided bogie with independent wheels. However, for a bogie with conventional wheelsets and active stabilisation, creep saturation effects can reduce stability significantly.

Keywords:

• wheelsets
• bogies
• active controls
• curving
• stability