Optimization of a bogie primary suspension damping to reduce wear in railway operations

Paper in proceeding, 2013

An optimization problem is formulated to attain the vector of optimized primary suspension passive dampers of a bogie in order to minimize wear in railway applications. A mechanical system with five degrees of freedom (DOF) comprising a single rigid wheelset attached to a fixed bogie frame is chosen to explore the effects of primary suspension damping components on wear. Different operational scenarios including tangent and curved tracks together with different levels of track irregularities are introduced to be used as inputs to model. The equations of motion of the system are obtained and the FASTSIM algorithm is employed to relate the creepages and the corresponding creep forces in different directions. At vehicle maximum admissible speed and a given set of operational scenarios, the optimized values of the primary suspension passive dampers in longitudinal, lateral and vertical directions are found through a genetic algorithm optimization routine in MATLAB. The outcomes of current research can not only be used to minimize wear in railway operation as well as reduce track access charges and maintenance costs, but also give insight into designing adaptive bogies.