Critical points numerical analysis of ride comfort of the flexible railway carbody

Abstract

Abstract Ride comfort is one of the criteria for evaluating the dynamic behaviour in railway vehicles, through which the complex sensation triggered by the vibrations in the railway vehicle carbody upon passengers is being described. The behaviour of vibrations along the vehicle carbody is not uniform and the point where the ride comfort is the least convenient can be considered as the carbody critical point. The paper examines the ride comfort along the carbody and the position of the ride comfort critical points in correlation with the speed, carbody flexibility and suspension damping. To this purpose, there are used the results from numerical simulations regarding the ride comfort index calculated along the carbody and the ride comfort index in three points deemed relevant in terms of evaluating the ride comfort at the center of carbody and above the bogies.