An optimization algorithm for locomotive secondary spring load adjustment based on artificial immune

In order to control the locomotive wheel (axle) load distribution, a shimming process to adjust the locomotive secondary spring loads was heretofore developed. An immune dominance clonal selection multi-objective algorithm based on the artificial immune system was presented to further improve the performance of the optimization algorithm for locomotive secondary spring load adjustment, especially to solve the lack of control on the output shim quantity. The algorithm was designed into a two-level optimization structure according to the preferences of the problem, and the priori knowledge of the problem was used as the immune dominance. Experiments on various types of locomotives show that owing to the novel algorithm, the shim quantity is cut down by 30%-60% and the calculation time is about 90% less while the secondary spring load distribution is controlled on the same level as before. The application of this optimization algorithm can significantly improve the availability and efficiency of the secondary spring adjustment process.