Basic study on vertical vibrations suppression in railway vehicle carbody by secondary suspension control using bogie vertical vibration velocity

Abstract

This study investigates a new method for the effective application of active secondary suspension for reducing vertical vibration of the carbody to improve ride comfort of railway vehicles. So far, most previous control methods have contributed to reducing the vibration of the rigid body modes of the carbody at approximately 1 Hz or the first bending mode at approximately 10 Hz. However , in modern high-speed vehicles, higher frequency vibrations generally have a relatively greater influence on vertical ride comfort than vibrations of around 1–2 Hz. Focusing on this fact, the authors propose active secondary suspension with feedback control of the vertical vibration velocity of the bogie frame as a method for reducing carbody vibrations in a wide frequency band above 2 Hz to improve ride comfort. Numerical simulations were carried out to simulate the actual running of a Shinkansen using a vehicle model corresponding to a Shinkansen vehicle with 14 degrees of freedom, considering the vertical and longitudinal dynamics of the vehicle. The results show that this method is mainly effective in reducing vertical carbody vibration above 3 Hz and that the frequency band for vibration reduction can be extended to 1 Hz or lower by combining this method with feedback control of the vertical displacement of the bogie.

Keywords

• railway vehicle
• active suspension
• vertical vibration
• ride comfort
• secondary suspension