Title: A study of parametric stability of railway vehicles

Authors: I. Haque, J. Lieh

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina 29634, USA. ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina 29634, USA

Abstract: This paper prevents a study of the parametric stability of passenger and freight vehicles on tangent track due to harmonic variations in conicity using linear models. The effect of primary and secondary stiffnesses on parametric excitation is also studied. Floquet theory is used to find the stability boundaries. The results show that wavelengths associated with conicity variation that are in the vicinity of half the kinematic wavelengths of the vehicles can lead to significant reductions in critical speeds. Results also show that the primary and warp stiffnesses can affect the severity of principal parametric resonance depending on the vehicle models and magnitude of stiffnesses chosen.

Keywords: conicity; equations of motion; hunting; linear models; parametric stability; passenger carriages; freight vehicles; railway vehicles; stiffness; wheel-rail geometry; harmonic variations; vehicle modelling; principal parametric resonance; Floquet theory.

DOI: 10.1504/IJVD.1993.061838

International Journal of Vehicle Design, 1993 Vol.14 No.2/3, pp.246 - 260

Published online: 28 May 2014 *

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