Analytical modeling of rail vehicle safety and comfort in short radius curved tracks

This study deals with the modeling of rail vehicles' behavior when traveling in curves of short radius. Based on the symmetry of the vehicle and on the nature of the motion, we show that the study of the system behavior can be reduced to the quasi static study of a quarter. We propose in this work, an analytical model able to describe the safety and the comfort by determining derailment and creep forces. The developed model is validated using the software ADAMS and results from the bibliography. The developed model can be easily used to optimize the rail vehicles design and the sensitivity analyses of its performance. To cite this article: M. Nejlaoui et al., C. R. Mecanique 337 (2009).