Keywords: coupled vibration, high-speed railway bridge, multi-body dynamics, derailment, safety evaluation, ballast track.

The coupled vibration analysis of a vehicle, rail, and bridge system is of great importance in the design of high speed railway bridges. In the past decades, a great deal of research concerning coupled vibration analyses of a train-track-bridge has been completed based on the structural dynamics theory [1,2]. Most of the work is devoted to the interaction element and the combination of two or three sub systems.

In this paper, the coupled vibration of the train-rail-bridge system is simulated based on multi-body dynamics and finite element theory. The system is considered as three sub-systems including the vehicle system, track system, and bridge structure system. A visual multi-system simulation model has been developed, in which vibration of the vehicle is simulated using a rigid body system and a flexible system [3], interface of the rail and wheel is seen as a contact and collision surface between them, the interface of track and bridge are linked by springs and dampers, and the bridge structure is modelled using beam elements. The effect of vehicle velocity, track irregularity, and the damping of the sleeper on the bridge's dynamic performance are investigated. In the analysis, the vehicle velocity varies from 200km/h to 400km/h, track irregularity is input as time domain data, which is transferred by a German high speed low disturbance spectrum, the sleeper damper is also changed to assess its effect. The main results include: (1) the peak value of the vehicle transverse acceleration increases from 1.36m/s² to 2.5m/s² along with a rise in the velocity, and the peak value of the vehicle vertical acceleration varied from 1.22m/s² to 3.95m/s²; (2) the peak value of the bridge vertical acceleration varied from 1.82m/s² to 1.34m/s² along with a rise in the velocity, and the vibration frequency appears to increase; (3) the vibration of the vehicle and bridge are irregular along with a change in the sleeper damping, but optimum damping of the sleeper can efficiently restrain the coupling vibration of the vehicle-rail-bridge. The safety assessment of the operating vehicles has also been implemented. It has been found that wheel derailment happens when the velocity of vehicle reaches 350km/h, while a related index such as the peak value of transverse acceleration exceeds the evaluation criteria. Further analysis of the wheel track contact force indicates that it is reasonable and relatively conservative to evaluate the safety of the train operation using a derailment coefficient.

1

L. Fryba, "Dynamics of railway bridges", Thomas Telford, 1996.

2

H. Xia, N. Zhang, "Dynamic interaction of vehicle and bridge", Second edition, Science Press, 2005.

3

RecurDyn / Solver, "Theoretical Manual, FunctionBay", Seoul/Korea, 2005.

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