Track Modelling and Control of a Railway Vehicle

In this paper, a railway vehicle AM96 train developed by Bombardier, Belgium is represented as a half-car model. First, random road defect inputs are modelled as track class 6 from Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) reports and vehicle vibration characteristics are studied for ten-degree-of freedom vehicle model. Next, lumped track model in terms of ballast and soil parameters is added to the structure and the vehicle response to random vibrations are studied. An active suspension problem is formulated and solved by using Linear-Quadratic Gaussian methodology. The improvement in root-mean-square (rms) vertical and pitch accelerations, the suspension travels and the tire deflections are obtained by active suspension design.