Keywords: real-time testing, wheel-rail contact, multitasking model, scaled train, multibody model, numerical efficiency.

The dynamics simulation of railway vehicles needs a reliable method to determine the contact point locations between wheel and rail that represents the application points of the contact forces, influencing their directions and intensities. Moreover, for the modern integration of simulation instruments and electronic components in real-time architectures, very efficient contact models are required.

Therefore an innovative wheel-rail contact model applied to a scaled train vehicle is presented in this paper. The proposed model is characterized by both a three-dimensional multibody model of the main elements (bodies and suspensions) to reproduce the train dynamics, and a wheel-rail contact model based on a semi-analytic procedure algorithm which, by computing the wheel-rail contact points and the contact forces, implements the interaction between vehicle and track. In particular, the contact-model has been optimized to obtain the best compromise between accuracy and efficiency, which is mandatory to meet the typical constraints introduced by the real-time implementation.

The numerical simulation of the proposed system shows the good accuracy and performance levels of the proposed algorithm. The proposed system has been validated using the experimental data provided by University of Seville (Spain), where a prototype of both the scaled train and the track were developed.

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