Lateral Damper of Subway Vehicle for Preventing Abnormal Impact

Abstract

In a subway vehicle, a lateral damper is used for compensating the lateral stiffness deterioration due to the air-spring as a secondary suspension. This lateral damper can reduce the lateral vibration of the carbody. When the damping force of the lateral damper is lowered, the running stability and ride quality of the subway vehicles worsens and the lateral motion of the carbody is increased. In this study, the lateral displacement variation of the carbody according to the damping force of the lateral damper was analyzed by multi-body dynamics to solve the abnormal impact problem during vehicle operation. Furthermore, the noise and vibration due to abnormal impact were considered. An adequate damping coefficient of the lateral damper for the subway vehicle treated in this paper was suggested for preventing abnormal impact.