Dynamics of the coupled railway vehicle-flexible track system with irregularities using a multibody approach with moving modes

In this work, we assessed the capabilities of a method that uses a multibody system description of railway vehicles based on a moving coordinate system in combination with moving modes of deformation to include track elastic displacements. Because this approach suppresses the influence of the boundary conditions of track models, track length ceases to be an issue for simulations. This existing procedure is briefly described and extended to a wide range of applications that require accounting for track frequency contents. A variety of phenomena long surveyed in the railway literature can thus be addressed. Several examples of a wheelset and a subway vehicle running on corrugated rails along varying-parameter tracks were simulated. Based on the results, the proposed method can efficiently capture the dynamic phenomena behind low-to-mid track frequency vehicle-track interactions, contact patch elasticity and vehicle dynamics.