Study on the improvement of running safety of railway vehicles with yaw damper during an earthquake

Abstract

After the Mid Niigata Prefecture Earthquake in 2004, research and development of earthquake countermeasures has started for Shinkansen trains. Some technologies for improving running safety of the Shinkansen trains during an earthquake have been applied to commercial lines and vehicles. Regarding conventional lines, earthquake countermeasures are also taken a growing interest, especially in metropolitan areas. At first, conventional guard angles which are usually placed on sharp curves are considered as the earthquake countermeasures due to cost restrictions. For the trains which have yaw dampers, this paper proposes to change the layout of the yaw dampers to longitudinally symmetrical position in bogie as another countermeasure against an earthquake. This paper also numerically clarifies that the proposed layout of yaw dampers improves running safety against sinusoidal oscillation. In addition, the actual bogie oscillation test is performed to valid the numerical results. From probabilistic perspective the authors show that the conventional guard angle and the proposed layout of yaw dampers have almost the same effects on improving running safety for seismic vibration of track.

Keywords

• railway vehicle
• conventional line
• running safety
• earthquake
• yaw damper
• actual bogie oscillation test
• derailment prevention guard