Influence of Wheel-Rail Contact Stiffness on the H-2 Controlled Active Suspension Design

Abstract

In this work, the mathemtical model of a railway passenger car with conventional and radial-elastic wheels is analyzed. Stochastic excitations are applied to the wheelsets. The local elasticity between the wheel and the rail is modelled by a linearized stiffness behaviour due to geometrical effects to simplify the controller design procedure for H-2 analysis. An optimization of the vertical dynamics is performed by reducing the the H-2 norms of the dynamic wheel forces while keeping the RMS gain of carbody accelerations at a constant level. It is seen that the controller performs well on the low frequency range where the ride comfort is more pronounced and partially on the high frequency range to suppress the environmental ground vibrations and structure-borne noise