Effect of the asymmetry of suspension damping on the ride comfort of railway vehicles

ABSTRACT

In terms of reliability, the damper represents the critical element of the suspension in the rail vehicle. A damper failure brings about a reduction in the damping of the suspension it belongs to, thus leading to the asymmetry of the suspension damping in the vehicle. The paper presents an analysis of the effect that the asymmetry of the secondary suspension damping has on the vertical vibration behaviour in the vehicle carbody and on the ride comfort, while using to that purpose the results derived from numerical simulations. The characteristics of the vibration behaviour for the resonance frequencies of the carbody dominant vertical modes are pointed out via the power spectral density of the carbody acceleration, which is weighted by the function of the sensitivity of the human body to the vertical vibrations. The ride comfort is assessed based on the ride index comfort calculated in three carbody reference points – at the centre and above the two bogies.

KEYWORDS:

• Railway vehicle
• suspension
• asymmetric damping
• vibration behaviour
• ride comfort

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

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Mădălina Dumitriu

Mădălina Dumitriu is Associate Professor PhD Habil. in the Department of Railway Vehicles, Faculty of Transportation, University Polytehnica of Bucharest, Romania. Her main area of research is railway vehicle dynamics, including the topics related to the vibration behaviour of the railway vehicles and ride comfort. She has published 8 books and more than 120 papers in reputable journals and international conference proceedings.