A Multi-Body Dynamic Model for Analysis of Localized Track Responses in Vicinity of Rail Discontinuities

Rail discontinuities are one of the main sources of wheel impact causing high levels of noise, vibration and stresses in railway track. Even though various multi-body train–track interaction models have been developed in the past decade, accurate modeling and analysis of the track dynamic behavior in the vicinity of rail discontinuities is rare in the literature. In this paper, formulation of a new explicit multi-body dynamic (MBD) model incorporating detailed wagon, wheel–rail subsystems and track containing a rail discontinuity (rail joint) is reported. The predictions of the localized track responses are validated using the data from two gapped rail joints in the field test. The validated model accurately determines the impact forces and dynamic responses. The simulation results provide valuable insight on the behavior of track in vicinity of a rail discontinuity, the sensitivity of the design parameters to the impact forces and the track dynamic responses currently unavailable in the literature.