Suspension dynamics and design optimization of a high speed railway vehicle

The design of suspension systems for high-speed railway vehicles involves the simultaneous consideration of those requirements as suspension packaging, ride quality, stability, and cost. A design strategy is presented in this paper that enables an optimal design with respect to these competing requirements. The design strategy consists of four steps including the development of a lumped parameter vehicle model, the determination of vehicle parameters, the formulation of a design objective, and the minimization of the objective to optimize key suspension parameters. The design objective captures vehicle requirements including ride quality, suspension packaging, and wheel/rail holding. Power spectral densities (PSDs) are computed for the vertical vehicle body acceleration, suspension travel and dynamic wheel/rail interaction. The design objective function is calculated based on these PSDs and minimized to yield an optimum. An example suspension design is proposed that improves vehicle ride quality and wheel/rail holding without sacrificing other requirements.