Railway Engineering Science最新文献

Facing the high demand for faster and heavier freight trains in Australia, researchers and practitioners are endeavouring to develop more innovative and resilient ballasted tracks. In recent years, many studies have been conducted by the researchers from Transport Research Centre at the University of Technology Sydney (TRC-UTS) to examine the feasibility of incorporating recycled tyre/rubber into rail tracks. This paper reviews three innovative applications using recycled rubber products such as (1) a synthetic energy-absorbing layer for railway subballast using a composite of rubber crumbs and mining by-products, (2) using rubber intermixed ballast stratum to replace conventional ballast, and (3) installing recycled rubber mat to mitigate ballast degradation under the impact loading. Comprehensive laboratory and field tests as well as numerical modelling have been conducted to examine the performance of rail tracks incorporating these innovative inclusions. The laboratory and field test results and numerical modelling reveal that incorporating these rubber products could increase the energy-absorbing capacity of the track, and mitigate the ballast breakage and settlement significantly, hence increasing the track stability. The research outcomes will facilitate a better understanding of the performance of ballast tracks incorporating these resilient waste tyre materials while promoting more economical and environmentally sustainable tracks for greater passenger comfort and increased safety.

High-speed railway bridges are essential components of any railway transportation system that should keep adequate levels of serviceability and safety. In this context, drive-by methodologies have emerged as a feasible and cost-effective monitoring solution for detecting damage on railway bridges while minimizing train operation interruptions. Moreover, integrating advanced sensor technologies and machine learning algorithms has significantly enhanced structural health monitoring (SHM) for bridges. Despite being increasingly used in traditional SHM applications, studies using autoencoders within drive-by methodologies are rare, especially in the railway field. This study presents a novel approach for drive-by damage detection in HSR bridges. The methodology relies on acceleration records collected from multiple bridge crossings by an operational train equipped with onboard sensors. Log-Mel spectrogram features derived from the acceleration records are used together with sparse autoencoders for computing statistical distribution-based damage indexes. Numerical simulations were performed on a 3D vehicle–track–bridge interaction system model implemented in Matlab to evaluate the robustness and effectiveness of the proposed approach, considering several damage scenarios, vehicle speeds, and environmental and operational variations, such as multiple track irregularities and varying measurement noise. The results show that the proposed approach can successfully detect damages, as well as characterize their severity, especially for very early-stage damages. This demonstrates the high potential of applying Mel-frequency damage-sensitive features associated with machine learning algorithms in the drive-by condition assessment of high-speed railway bridges.

Track irregularity from rail alternate side wear is manifested as uneven rail wear waveforms alternating in the left and right rails with equal intervals, which will cause carbody sway behaviour of railway vehicles and greatly influences the passenger comfort. In this work, the carbody sway behaviour and mechanism due to track irregularity from rail alternate side wear and possible solutions to this issue were studied by the field testing and numerical calculation approaches. First, the carbody sway of an urban rail transit train is introduced with full-scale field tests, through which the rail alternate side wear is characterized and the formatted track irregularity are presented. Then, multibody vehicle dynamic models are developed to reproduce the carbody sway behaviour induced by the track irregularity from the rail alternate side wear. The creep forces acting on the wheel and rail are preliminarily discussed to study the influence of the carbody sway on the wear of the wheel flange and the rail corner. Finally, some potential solutions, e.g. improving the damping ratio of carbody rigid mode and rail grinding, are proposed to relieve this issue. It is concluded that an increased damping ratio of the carbody mode can alleviate the carbody sway and wheel–rail interactions, while properly maintaining track conditions can improve the vehicle performance.

High-speed trains typically utilize helical gear transmissions, which significantly impact the bearing load capacity and fatigue service performance of the gearbox bearings. This paper focuses on the gearbox bearings, establishing dynamic models for both helical gear and herringbone gear transmissions in high-speed trains. The modeling particularly emphasizes the precision of the bearings at the gearbox’s pinion and gear wheels. Using this model, a comparative analysis is conducted on the bearing loads and contact stresses of the gearbox bearings under uniform-speed operation between the two gear transmissions. The findings reveal that the helical gear transmission generates axial forces leading to severe load imbalance on the bearings at both sides of the large gear, and this imbalance intensifies with the increase in train speed. Consequently, this results in a significant increase in contact stress on the bearings on one side. The adoption of herringbone gear transmission effectively suppresses axial forces, resolving the load imbalance issue and substantially reducing the contact stress on the originally biased side of the bearings. The study demonstrates that employing herringbone gear transmission can significantly enhance the service performance of high-speed train gearbox bearings, thereby extending their service life.

The accurate assessment of running safety during earthquakes is of significant importance for ensuring the safety of railway lines. Currently, assessment methods based on a single index suffer from issues such as misjudgment of operational safety and difficulty in evaluating operational margin, making them unsuitable for assessing train safety during earthquakes. Therefore, in order to propose an effective evaluation method for the running safety of trains during earthquakes, this study employs three indexes, namely lateral displacement of the wheel–rail contact point, wheel unloading rate, and wheel lift, to describe the lateral and vertical contact states between the wheel and rail. The corresponding evolution characteristics of the wheel–rail contact states are determined, and the derailment forms under different frequency components of seismic motion are identified through dynamic numerical simulations of the train–track coupled system under sine excitation. The variations in the wheel–rail contact states during the transition from a safe state to the critical state of derailment are analyzed, thereby constructing the evolutionary path of train derailment and seismic derailment risk domain. Lastly, the wheel–rail contact and derailment states under seismic conditions are analyzed, thus verifying the effectiveness of the evaluation method for assessing running safety under earthquakes proposed in this study. The results indicate that the assessment method based on the derailment risk domain accurately and comprehensively reflects the wheel–rail contact states under seismic conditions. It successfully determines the forms of train derailment, the risk levels of derailment, and the evolutionary paths of derailment risk.

The dynamic load distribution within in-service axlebox bearings of high-speed trains is crucial for the fatigue reliability assessment and forward design of axlebox bearings. This paper presents an in situ measurement of the dynamic load distribution in the four rows of two axlebox bearings on a bogie wheelset of a high-speed train under polygonal wheel–rail excitation. The measurement employed an improved strain-based method to measure the dynamic radial load distribution of roller bearings. The four rows of two axlebox bearings on a wheelset exhibited different ranges of loaded zones and different means of distributed loads. Besides, the mean value and standard deviation of measured roller–raceway contact loads showed non-monotonic variations with the frequency of wheel–rail excitation. The fatigue life of the four bearing rows under polygonal wheel–rail excitation was quantitatively predicted by compiling the measured roller–raceway contact load spectra of the most loaded position and considering the load spectra as input.

The issue of low-frequency structural noise radiated from high-speed railway (HSR) box-girder bridges (BGBs) is a significant challenge worldwide. Although it is known that vibrations in BGBs caused by moving trains can be reduced by installing multiple tuned mass dampers (MTMDs) on the top plate, there is limited research on the noise reduction achieved by this method. This study aims to investigate the noise reduction mechanism of BGBs installed with MTMDs on the top plate. A sound radiation prediction model for the BGB installed with MTMDs is developed, based on the vehicle–track–bridge coupled dynamics and acoustics boundary element method. After being verified by field tested results, the prediction model is employed to study the reduction of vibration and noise of BGBs caused by the MTMDs. It is found that installing MTMDs on top plate can significantly affect the vibration distribution and sound radiation law of BGBs. However, its impact on the sound radiation caused by vibrations dominated by the global modes of BGBs is minimal. The noise reduction achieved by MTMDs is mainly through changing the acoustic radiation contributions of each plate of the bridge. In the lower frequency range, the noise reduction of BGB caused by MTMDs can be more effective if the installation of MTMDs can modify the vibration frequency and distribution of the BGB to avoid the influence of small vibrations and disperse the sound radiation from each plate.

Hunting stability is an important performance criterion in railway vehicles. This study proposes an incorporation of a bio-inspired limb-like structure (LLS)-based nonlinear damping into the motor suspension system for traction units to improve the nonlinear critical speed and hunting stability of high-speed trains (HSTs). Initially, a vibration transmission analysis is conducted on a HST vehicle and a metro vehicle that suffered from hunting motion to explore the effect of different motor suspension systems from on-track tests. Subsequently, a simplified lateral dynamics model of an HST bogie is established to investigate the influence of the motor suspension on the bogie hunting behavior. The bifurcation analysis is applied to optimize the motor suspension parameters for high critical speed. Then, the nonlinear damping of the bio-inspired LLS, which has a positive correlation with the relative displacement, can further improve the modal damping of hunting motion and nonlinear critical speed compared with the linear motor suspension system. Furthermore, a comprehensive numerical model of a high-speed train, considering all nonlinearities, is established to investigate the influence of different types of motor suspension. The simulation results are well consistent with the theoretical analysis. The benefits of employing nonlinear damping of the bio-inspired LLS into the motor suspension of HSTs to enhance bogie hunting stability are thoroughly validated.

During the operation of sandy railways, the challenge posed by wind-blown sand is a persistent issue. An in-depth study on the influence of wind-blown sand content on the macroscopic and microscopic mechanical properties of the ballast bed is of great significance for understanding the potential problems of sandy railways and proposing reasonable and adequate maintenance and repair strategies. Building upon existing research, this study proposes a new assessment indicator for sand content. Utilizing the discrete element method (DEM) and fully considering the complex interactions between ballast and sand particles, three-dimensional (3D) multi-scale analysis models of sandy ballast beds with different wind-blown sand contents are established and validated through field experiments. The effects of varying wind-blown sand content on the microscopic contact distribution and macroscopic mechanical behavior (such as resistance and support stiffness) of ballast beds are carefully analyzed. The results show that with the increase in sand content, the average contact force and coordination number between ballast particles gradually decrease, and the disparity in contact forces between different layers of the ballast bed diminishes. The longitudinal and lateral resistance of the ballast bed initially decreases and then increases, with a critical point at 10% sand content. At 15% sand content, the lateral resistance is mainly shared by the ballast shoulder. The longitudinal resistance sharing ratio is always the largest on the sleeper side, followed by that at the sleeper bottom, and the smallest on the ballast shoulder. When the sand content exceeds 10%, the contribution of sand particles to stiffness significantly increases, leading to an accelerated growth rate of the overall support stiffness of the ballast bed, which is highly detrimental to the long-term service performance of the ballast bed. In conclusion, it is recommended that maintenance and repair operations should be promptly conducted when the sand content of the ballast bed reaches or exceeds 10%.

Excavating super-large-span tunnels in soft rock masses presents significant challenges. To ensure safety, the sequential excavation method is commonly adopted. It utilizes internal temporary supports to spatially partition the tunnel face and divide the excavation into multiple stages. However, these internal supports generally impose spatial constraints, limiting the use of large-scale excavation equipment and reducing construction efficiency. To address this constraint, this study adopts the “Shed-frame” principle to explore the feasibility of an innovative support system, which aims to replace internal supports with prestressed anchor cables and thus provide a more spacious working space with fewer internal obstructions. To evaluate its effectiveness, a field case involving the excavation of a 24-m span tunnel in soft rock is presented, and an analysis of extensive field data is conducted to study the deformation characteristics of the surrounding rock and the mechanical behavior of the support system. The results revealed that prestressed anchor cables integrated the initial support with the shed, creating an effective “shed-frame” system, which successively maintained tunnel deformation and frame stress levels within safe regulatory bounds. Moreover, the prestressed anchor cables bolstered the surrounding rock effectively and reduced the excavation-induced disturbance zone significantly. In summary, the proposed support system balances construction efficiency and safety. These field experiences may offer valuable insights into the popularization and further development of prestressed anchor cable support systems.