Assessment of derailment quotient of locomotive bogie

Abstract

In the conditions of the market economy and increased competition in the market of transport services, railway transport maintains an important position in the economy. Its main importance is due to technical and economic advantages over most other modes of transport. The main element of rail transport is rail vehicles, which must meet modern technical and economic requirements. Only competitive modern and progressive scientific technologies work effectively in a market economy. Traffic safety, technical and economic indicators of railway transport depend on the development of these technologies. The aim of this study is to improve the properties of a two-axle bogie of a locomotive as one of the main components on which the above-mentioned parameters depend. The commercial simulation software package Simpack was used for the research, in which MBS models of three types of bogies were created. Namely, there are modifications of the bogie considering a different distribution of the weight and different dimensions of chosen parameters. The first type of bogie is the basic one. This bogie is operated on railways. The other two are modifications of the first one, namely such parameters as the weight of separate parts of the bogie, dimensions of the bogie and wheelset, and location of the centre pivot. The research was conducted in terms of the derailment quotient, as one of the main parameters on which traffic safety depends, for different speeds and curve radii. After carrying out simulation calculations, the results were processed using Simpack post software. In all cases, the derailment quotient did not exceed the permissible value for all types of bogies. The best derailment quotient was for the third type of bogie, the derailment quotient of the second type was slightly overestimated in comparison with the other two but was still within the norm.