New Aspects of Contact Modelling and Validation Within Multibody System Simulation of Railway Vehicles

The development of advanced railway vehicles requires an efficient modelling and simulation of wheel-rail systems under complex conditions and maneuvers. For that reason, the multibody system simulation software SIMPACK was enhanced recently with a generally applicable wheel-rail contact module to be outlined in this paper. This module comprises the possibility of applying a constrained or an elastic contact model, single or multiple contact locations per wheel-rail element, analytic or measured track geometries including irregularities and rail profiles, varying in longitudinal direction (switches). A simulation study of a passenger car running through a switch demonstrates the efficiency of the constrained wheel-rail contact model extended for the simulation of multiple contacts. As a second example a freight train is investigated and its simulation results are compared to measurements in order to validate the simulation tool as well as the model.