Modelling and simulation of railway vehicle bogie vibrations

The paper deals with the mathematical modelling and the computer simulation of vibrations of a two-axle railway vehicle bogie. The excitation caused by track irregularities is supposed. The modelling is based on the system decomposition into three subsystems - two individual wheelset drives including the mass of the rails, viscoelastic properties of the track ballast and the bogie frame coupled with a half of a car body. To model couplings among subsystems are applied Lagrange's equations and adhesion forces at contact patches between rails and wheels were modelled using the Kalker's theory. Vertical and lateral rails' irregularities are expressed by deviations in the form of functions of the distance measured along the track. The computer simulation of the bogie vibrations is applied to a particular railway vehicle bogie with two individual wheelset drives.