Multibody Dynamics and Vibration Analysis for Railcar Wheelset Design Studies

This paper presents design studies and dynamic analyses of a railway passenger coach. The wheelset excitations are deterministic due to polygonalization generating noise in ICE passenger coaches and stochastic due to track irregularities. The strength of conventional wheelsets against vibrations due to polygonalized wheels is investigated. Radialelastic wheels reduce the unsprung mass and isolate the bogie frame and carbody from the medium and high frequency excitation caused by the wheel/rail interaction. A parameter optimization of such wheels leads to considerably reduced carbody vibrations. Stability tests are performed for various parameter sets of radialand lateralelastic wheels. The results show that designs with increased bending stiffness and improved parameters are feasible, and guarantee the stability of the wheelset motion as well as a noise reduction.