Modelling of flexi-coil springs with rubber-metal pads in a locomotive running gear
Date issued
2015
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of West Bohemia
Abstract
Nowadays, flexi-coil springs are commonly used in the secondary suspension stage of railway vehicles. Lateral
stiffness of these springs is influenced by means of their design parameters (number of coils, height, mean diameter
of coils, wire diameter etc.) and it is often suitable to modify this stiffness in such way, that the suspension shows
various lateral stiffness in different directions (i.e., longitudinally vs. laterally in the vehicle-related coordinate
system). Therefore, these springs are often supplemented with some kind of rubber-metal pads. This paper deals
with modelling of the flexi-coil springs supplemented with tilting rubber-metal tilting pads applied in running gear
of an electric locomotive as well as with consequences of application of that solution of the secondary suspension
from the point of view of the vehicle running performance. This analysis is performed by means of multi-body
simulations and the description of lateral stiffness characteristics of the springs is based on results of experimental
measurements of these characteristics performed in heavy laboratories of the Jan Perner Transport Faculty of the
University of Pardubice.
Description
Subject(s)
výpočtová mechanika, model lidského těla, simulace, modelování
Citation
Applied and Computational Mechanics. 2015, vol. 9, no. 1, p. 21-30