LATERAL DYNAMICS OF A LIGHT RAILWAY VEHICLE WITH INDEPENDENT WHEELS

Abstract

SUMMARY This paper presents a multibody model developed for railway applications and, in particular, for the study of the lateral dynamics of a non-conventional articulated bogie with independent wheels. The classical multibody formalism is first briefly reviewed and the generation of the equations in symbolic form is also presented. Moreover, a new wheel/rail contact model compatible with the symbolic output of the MBS software ROBOTRAN has been developed. The validation with results available in the literature and some results concerning the articulated bogie are finally presented.