Running performance of power-steering railway bogie with independently rotating wheels

Abstract

This article proposes the concept of a steering bogie which utilizes self-steering ability while realizing further running performance with slight active control on a tight curve. An independently rotating wheel with EEF bogie naturally has self-steering ability, making use of gravity stiffness aroused by nonlinear tread gradient, but has oscillation in the wheel-steering motion. The proposed power-steering railway bogie consists of independently rotating wheels with a power-steering device and enables us to eliminate steering vibration while realizing ideal steering with slight power assist on curving. In this article, the theoretical investigation of the power-steering bogie and the control strategies is mentioned. Experimental results and numerical simulations with a scaled model vehicle show the effectiveness of the proposed bogie design and the proposed power-steering control.

Active suspension in railway vehicles: a literature survey

“…The academic world has for a long time tried to find control algorithms that provide better performances. A recent trend is that the performances are set in relation to [153] Active suspension in railway vehicles: a literature survey 29 Full-scale or small-scaled roller rig tests 3 Field tests 4 Implemented in no more than two country(s) 5 Implemented in more than two countries the complexity and that fewer sensors and sensors less likely to fail are used. Moreover, experimental studies are increasing for both active primary and secondary suspensions actuation systems.…”

“…An application of DSW was proposed by Michitsuji et al [153] on a 1:10 scaled model for the EEF bogie (Fig. 36).…”

“…31 or by applying a differential torque through hub-mounted traction motors (Powell in [152]). A configuration of DSW having self- steering capability was presented by Michitsuji et al [153][154][155]. It was also shown by Wickens in [151] that the stability issue achieved through active control is less affected by friction and traction than with other types of active control.…”

“…The tracking error is here defined as the error of the vehicle position with respect to the track centreline. Subsequently, a passive bogie with self-steering capability was introduced by Michitsuji and Suda in [153]. Here, a feedforward action is introduced to improve the vehicle behaviour during curve transition by compensating the disturbances that emerge from the time variation of the track curvature.…”

Concepts and prospects for actively controlled railway running gear

“…Until today, the only known prototype implementation of the DSW concept is represented by a 1:10 scale model built at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology [19] (category 3-3-3-3), but it is possible that in the near future, this concept will be adopted on the Wien tramcar fleet [20]. As for the ASW concept, safety and reliability appear to be at present the main issues in view of the implementation on service vehicles, especially because failure of one actuator could be safety-critical.…”