Derailment and Dynamic Analysis of Tilting Railway Vehicles Moving Over Irregular Tracks Under Environment Forces

Utilizing a nonlinear creep model, the dynamic behavior of tilting railway vehicles moving over curved tracks with rail irregularities and under earthquakes and wind loads is studied. The car model adopted consists of 28 degrees of freedom, capable of simulating the lateral, vertical, roll and yaw motions for the wheelsets, truck frames and car body. The derailment quotient is investigated to analyze the running safety of a tilting railway vehicle using the linear and nonlinear creep models, while considering the rail irregularities and environmental forces for various tilting angles. Generally, the derailment risk of the tilting railway vehicle is higher than that of non-tilting railway vehicle with or without rail irregularities and environmental forces. The derailment quotients calculated by the linear creep model are underestimated for a tilting railway vehicle. In addition, the derailment quotients evaluated for rough rails and under environmental forces are higher than those obtained for smooth rails with no environmental forces. It is confirmed that rail irregularities and each type of environmental forces have decisive effects on derailment quotients. They are compared and ranked according to their significance.