Evaluation of the vertical vibrations behaviour of the bogie at failure of the dampers in the primary suspension of the railway vehicle

Abstract

The paper aims to evaluate the behaviour of vertical vibrations of a two-axle bogie at failure of a damper in the primary suspension of the vehicle. The level of vibrations in the bogie is shown to rise as a consequence of the imbalance triggered in the system by the fault damper, resulting in dynamic interferences between the bounce and pitch vibrations of the bogie. This fact is highlighted by the results derived from the numerical simulations, which feature the frequency response functions of the bogie during rolling on a track with vertical irregularities. Various scenarios will be considered for lowering the damping constant in comparison with the reference value.