Influences of aerodynamic loads on hunting stability of high-speed railway vehicles and parameter studies

The influences of steady aerodynamic loads on hunting stability of high-speed railway vehicles were investigated in this study. A mechanism is suggested to explain the change of hunting behavior due to actions of aerodynamic loads: the aerodynamic loads can change the position of vehicle system (consequently the contact relations), the wheel/rail normal contact forces, the gravitational restoring forces/moments and the creep forces/moments. A mathematical model for hunting stability incorporating such influences was developed. A computer program capable of incorporating the effects of aerodynamic loads based on the model was written, and the critical speeds were calculated using this program. The dependences of linear and nonlinear critical speeds on suspension parameters considering aerodynamic loads were analyzed by using the orthogonal test method, the results were also compared with the situations without aerodynamic loads. It is shown that the most dominant factors affecting linear and nonlinear critical speeds are different whether the aerodynamic loads considered or not. The damping of yaw damper is the most dominant influencing factor for linear critical speeds, while the damping of lateral damper is most dominant for nonlinear ones. When the influences of aerodynamic loads are considered, the linear critical speeds decrease with the rise of crosswind velocity, whereas it is not the case for the nonlinear critical speeds. The variation trends of critical speeds with suspension parameters can be significantly changed by aerodynamic loads. Combined actions of aerodynamic loads and suspension parameters also affect the critical speeds. The effects of such joint action are more obvious for nonlinear critical speeds.