High Speed Stability and Curving Performance of Longitudinally Unsymmetric Trucks with Semi-active Control

SUMMARY The possibility of improving both the dynamic stability and curving performance of railway trucks through the use of semi-active control is discussed. According to the direction of vehicle motion, the truck parameters are switched in a longitudinally asymmetric manner. Using a method of evaluation proposed here, the stability of trucks having the same steering ability was examined using linear models. A truck equipped with independently rotating wheels on the trailing axle and with unsymmetric primary suspension has the best performance. A realistic method of achieving this is proposed: using harder primary longitudinal stiffness on the trailing axle and using a primary yaw damper only on the leading, allows bidirectional operation by changing the damping force.