Vertical Vibration Suppression of Railway Vehicle by Damping Control of Air Springs

The air suspension system is now widely used for railway vehicles. To improve the riding comfort of vehicles equipped with this system, we tested semi-active control system of air suspensions having a variable orifice which is installed between air spring and auxiliary air chamber, and is controlled by a controller designed based on the H∞ control algorism. Numerical simulations using 1/2 railway vehicle model with 4 components air suspension model and excitation tests using a 1/2 carbody on rolling stock testing plant are earried out. The results show that the proposed system reduces effectively the power spectral density (PSD) of acceleration of the carbody floor, and there is observed little difference in the effectiveness of vibration mitigation between the case of using a reduced-order controller and the case of using the original one.