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Rail vehicle dynamic simulation has progressed a long way from its origins as a research tool. Modern multibody software packages are used as an essential part of the design process for new vehicles and for investigating service problems with existing vehicles. Increasingly, simulation is being used as part of the vehicle acceptance process in place of on-track testing. This state of the art paper for the 21st IAVSD Symposium in Stockholm in August 2009 surveys the current applications for rail vehicle dynamic modelling. The process of reducing a complex mechanical system to a mathematical representation is invariably subject to compromise and open to individual interpretation. The level of detail and choice of idealisation of suspension components will depend on the application, and in the real world it also depends on the availability of information about the system. This paper discusses appropriate modelling choices for different applications, and comments on best practice for the idealisation of suspension components, wheel/rail contact conditions and modelling inputs such as track geometry. The validation of simulation results is increasingly important, and this paper discusses recent trends in this area. Finally, the paper takes a brief look forward to future simulation issues.
Evans et al. (Sat,) studied this question.