Computer Package for the Optimal Design and Simulation of Railway Hydraulic Dampers

The optimal design of a hydraulic damper for rail vehicle application can be a typical problem of multi-objective design optimization. Therefore, specialized computational tool should be developed for the implementation of such designs. This study establishes mathematical models for the optimal design and performances simulation of the most widely used adjustable linear hydraulic damper series, and by which develops a computer package for pertinent implementations. The computer package employs the genetic algorithm as the optimization search facility, and consists of four major modules as the optimizer, the simulation, the postprocessor and the file management. By far, the computer package has been successfully applied to the development of several hydraulic dampers used on speed-improved passenger cars and locomotives.