Resonance of railway vehicles induced by floating-slab tracks: mechanism and countermeasures

For a railway vehicle moving over a series of floating-slab (FS) tracks with identical spans at a constant speed, track-induced resonance on the railway vehicle could occur when any of the frequencies of the FS track coincides with any of those implied by the wheel loads. Under this condition, the wheel-rail interaction will be aggravated and the ride comfort of railway vehicles will be deteriorated. This paper presents an experimental and numerical investigation of the mechanism and countermeasures for the resonant response of a metro vehicle induced by eccentric wheels travelling on FS tracks. The characteristics of the resonant response of the metro vehicle are revealed through the field tracking tests. A vehicle-track model considering the FS tracks and eccentric wheels is developed to analyse the resonant mechanism. Several countermeasures, including optimal design of FS track structure and elimination of wheel eccentric wear, are proposed to restrain the resonant vibration. The results show that the resonance caused by the eccentric wheels moving over FS tracks is the root causes for the ride comfort reduction of the metro vehicle. The field tests validate that re-profiling eccentric wheels can significantly eliminate the resonance phenomenon and enhance vehicle dynamics performances.