Car body and bogie connection modification for track curves passability improvement

Abstract

For Tram cars, it is often necessary to operate in cities on strongly curved track, which is followed by an increased effect of the vehicle on the track. Especially, this increased effect occurs in spiral transition curves situated between direct and arc sections or between two arc sections of different radius. In such case, increased guiding forces, creep in the rail - wheel contact, wear and noise generation can be observed. Exactly with the aim to reduce these undesirable effects we designed a tram bogie with steered wheelsets. This paper deals with a modification of its coupling to vehicle body in order to improve vehicle dynamics in transition curves. Proposed innovative construction of this coupling unit is registered by authors under Utility Model Nr. u201609015 and Utility Model Nr. u201703246. Description of the proposed way for a vehicle to pass through curved track with regard to bogie-body coupling and wheelset steering mechanisms with usage of multibody computing software is given in this paper.