Numerical simulation of snow accumulation in bogie area of high-speed trains in CFD-DEM method

Abstract

When operating in cold weathers, high-speed trains may find snow and ice building up in their bogie areas, thus deteriorating the vehicle's dynamic performance. Based on the Unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes equation (URANS) in combination with the Discrete Element Method (DEM), this study simulated the motion of snow particles in the bogie area for 1 s, with the Johnson-Kendall-Roberts (JKR) contact model deployed to calculate the force of the snow particles on the wall and identify whether they would adhere to the wall. In addition, this study explored the following two aspects' influence on the movement of snow particles and the snow accumulation in the bogie area: the elastic modulus of snow particles, and the surface energy of interfaces between snow particles and the wall. It is found in this study that increased elastic modulus of snow particles can effectively prevent snow particles from entering the bogie area. According to the simulation results, when the elastic modulus of snow particles is increased from 0.1Mpa to 1Mpa and 10Mpa, the snow particles entering the bogie area would be reduced by 15.6% and 30.4%, and the snow particles adhering to the bogie area by 44.3% and 48.1%, respectively. Furthermore, when the interfacial surface energy between snow particles and the wall is decreased from 0.13J/m² to 0.075J/m² and 0.02J/m², the adhesion on the bogie would be diminished by 50.4% and 73.8%, and the adhesion on the bogie cavity wall by 28.5% and 32.4%, respectively.