Dynamic Simulation of Tram–Train Vehicles On Railway Track

This paper on tram-train vehicles on railway track is from the proceedings of 14th international Conference on Urban Transport and the Environment in the 21st Century, which was held in Malta in 2008. The authors describe how “tram–train” systems carry out the integration of an urban tramway with the surrounding railway network, by means of light rail vehicles often provided with special wheel profiles in order to fit both grooved and flat-bottomed rails. The authors report on a study that compared the dynamic behavior of a typical Light Rail Vehicle (LRV) that had “tram–train” wheel profiles with the dynamics of the same LRV provided with an heavy railway standard wheel profile. The study modeled, in a multi-body simulation environment, the run on railway tracks of a virtual vehicle provided with these two wheel profiles. The model vehicle includes traditional motor bogies having a pair of solid-axle wheel-sets and trailer bogies having independently rotating wheels. They found that independently rotating wheels provided with Karlsruhe tram-train vehicles (KVV) profile cause an increase of rail wear compared to traditional wheelsets.