Suppression of Vertical Vibration in Railway Vehicles by Controlling the Damping Force of Primary and Secondary Suspensions

In order to improve the ride comfort on railway vehicles, it is essential to suppress the vibration of the vertical bending mode of the carbody as well as one of the rigid modes. Therefore, we propose a method to suppress such vibrations by using damping control systems for axle dampers and air springs; the former is to suppress the first mode bending vibration, and the latter is to suppress the rigid mode vibration. Our results indicate that the control method effectively reduces the power spectral density (PSD) of accelerations of the carbody floor.