Refining the modelling of vehicle–track interaction

An enhanced model of a passenger coach running on a straight track is developed. This model includes wheelsets modelled as rotating flexible bodies, a track consisting of flexible rails supported on discrete sleepers and wheel–rail contact modules, which can describe non-elliptic contact patches based on a boundary element method (BEM). For the scenarios of undisturbed centred running and permanent hunting, the impact of the structural deformations of the wheelsets and the rails on the stress distribution in the wheel–rail contact is investigated.