The coupled effects of bending and torsional flexural modes of a high-speed train car body on its vertical ride quality

This study is focused on the effects of bending and torsional flexural modes of the car body on the ride quality index of a high-speed train vehicle. The Euler–Bernoulli beam model is used to extract an analytical model for a high-speed train vehicle car body in order to investigate its bending and torsional flexural vibrations. The rigid model includes a car body, two bogie frames, and four wheelsets such that, each mass has three degrees of freedom including vertical displacement, pitch motion, and roll motion. The results obtained with the proposed analytical model are compared with experimental measurements of the car body response of a Shinkansen high-speed train. Moreover, it is determined that the bending and torsional flexural modes have significant effects on the vertical acceleration of the car body, particularly in the 9–15 Hz frequency range. Furthermore, the ride quality index is calculated according to the EN 12299 standard and it is shown that the faster the train the more affected is the ride quality by the flexural modes. In addition, the effect of coherence between two rail irregularities (the right and the left rails) on the results of the simulation is investigated. The results conclude that if the irregularities are completely correlated the torsional flexural mode of the car body does not appear in the response. Also, the first bending flexural mode in such cases is more excited compared with the partially correlated or uncorrelated rail irregularities. Therefore, the ride quality index in completely correlated cases is higher than other cases.