See

discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319684511

An advanced vehicleslab track interaction

model considering rail random irregularities

Article in Journal of Vibration and Control September 2017

DOI: 10.1177/1077546317731005

CITATIONS READS

0 55

3 authors, including:

Lei Xu
Southwest Jiaotong University
13 PUBLICATIONS 7 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Random analysis, track geometric deterioration View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Lei Xu on 22 September 2017.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Article
Journal of Vibration and Control
112

An advanced vehicleslab track ! The Author(s) 2017

Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
interaction model considering rail DOI: 10.1177/1077546317731005
journals.sagepub.com/home/jvc
random irregularities

Lei Xu1, Zhaowei Chen2 and Wanming Zhai1

Abstract
This paper investigates a more advanced vertical vehicleslab track interaction model (VTIM) by considering the dis-
continuity of track slabs, besides, it can be degenerated to the traditional two-dimensional model conveniently.
Moreover, a cyclic calculation method (CCM) is further developed to solve infinite length calculations. On this basis,
the proposed dynamic model and CCM are validated by comparing with the more comprehensive three-dimensional
traintrack model and fixed-point excitation method. Then, from aspects of probability statistics and frequency analysis,
an illustrative example is particularly conducted to comprehensively characterize the dynamic responses of vehicleslab
track systems, in which the representative and realistic rail irregularity sets simulated by the track irregularity probabil-
istic model are used as the loading inputs. Results show that, with a low consumption of computational time and
computer memory, the dynamic results derived from VTIM and CCM have a high accuracy, which indicates that the
proposed dynamic model and calculation method can be efficiently and accurately used to analyze trainslab track
interactions.

Keywords
Vehicleslab track interactions, rail random irregularity, cyclic calculation model, track irregularity probabilistic model,
random vibrations

designation and the modeling of slab track subject to

1. Introduction
Excited by rail random irregularities, severe dynamic
interactions between railway rolling stocks and guiding
tracks have attracted much concern in the eld of
design and maintenance of track structures as well as
the assessment of safety and comfort of railway trans-
portation, especially for trains running at speeds of
higher than 300 km/h (Ferreira and Lopez-Pita, 2015;
Nguyen et al., 2014; Paixao et al., 2001; Steenbergen
et al., 2007; Vale and Calcada, 2014; Zhai and Sun,
1994; Zhai et al., 2015). Recently, Kouroussis et al.
(2015) made contributions on guring out the environ-
mental eects of ground-borne vibrations due to loca-
lized railway defects in urban areas. Due to the obvious
superiority over ballasted track in aspects of lower
maintenance, higher safety and stability, and the possi-
bility of longer possession times, etc. (Esveld, 2001;
Steenbergen et al., 2007), concrete slab track has a
wide application in high-speed railway lines all over
the world. Therefore, studies on the dynamics, the
moving vehicles are of signicant interest to researchers
engaged in railway engineering.
The dynamic interactions between the vehicles and
the tracks should be modeled to reveal the running
performance and vibration level of railway systems
physically and mechanically. Though the three-dimen-
sional (3-D) vehicletrack models considering the lat-
eral and vertical vehicle/track interactions have been
properly constructed by researchers (Esveld, 2001; Xu
and Zhai, 2017; Zhai et al., 2009), it has been observed
1
Traction Power State Key Laboratory, Southwest Jiaotong University,
Chengdu, Peoples Republic of China
2
School of Mechanotronics & Vehicle Engineering, Chongqing Jiaotong
University, Chongqing, China
Received: 17 March 2017; accepted: 18 August 2017
Corresponding author:
Wanming Zhai, Traction Power State Key Laboratory, Southwest Jiaotong
University, Chengdu, Peoples Republic of China.
Email: wmzhai@swjtu.edu.cn
2 Journal of Vibration and Control 0(0)
that the track degradations mainly occur in the vertical
direction (Vale and Calcada, 2014). Hence the vertical
dynamic behaviors of the vehicletrack system will be
concerned as the emphases in this current work, and the
nite element method (FEM) used to represent the full
track cross-sections and vehicles in the two-dimensional
(2-D) space will be illustrated. Until now, the signicant
work toward modeling vehicleslab track interactions
have been presented by many researchers, such as Lei
and Wang (2014) and Yang et al. (2015) who presented
the general vehicleslab track FE models to investigate
the dynamic responses of slab track systems. However,
the discontinuity between adjacent track slabs for miti-
gating the thermal expansion eects was neglected. The
work of Song et al. (2011) and Sadheghi et al. (2016)
properly made up this defect, but the modeling details
were not presented.
Though the FEM has superiority in model construc-
tion, its disadvantages in low computational eciency
and high computer memory consumption are also
troublesome. Thereby, the length of the tracks cannot
be too long to drastically increase the degrees of free-
dom (DOFs); this, however, contradicts the require-
ments of long length calculation since the moving
vehicle will inevitably approach to the boundary of
the tracks. To solve this issue, benecial developments
have been made, including cutting and merging meth-
ods (Dong, 1994; Hou et al., 2003) and the tracking
window model (Jin et al., 2013).
This work aims at providing deep insights into the
modeling methodologies of vehicleslab track
interactions and the techniques for innite length cal-
culation. Moreover, aside from the model building, the
situations where the participation of rail irregularities is
considered will be also revealed in the numerical stu-
dies. The framework of this paper can be organized as
Figure 1. Vehicleslab track coupled system.
follows: in Section 2, the detailed modeling process of a
vehicletrack interaction model is presented, in which a
particular slab track element considering the track slab
discontinuity is developed; then, a cyclic calculation
model is presented to realize the innite length calcula-
tion of the vehicletrack interaction model in Section 3;
on this basis, some meaningful numerical validations
and examples are presented in Section 4; and nally,
some remarkable conclusions are illustrated in
Section 5.
2. Dynamic equations of motion for
vehicleslab track interactions
In Figure 1, a typical vehicletrack interaction model is
presented, in which the expansion joint between adja-
cent track slabs is considered as the combination of a
shear spring and a damper. The track system can, there-
fore, be constructed by two types of structures in the
FEM, that is, the particular slab track element (P-STE)
and common slab track element (C-STE). In this sec-
tion, the Hamilton principle is applied to derive the
dynamic equations of motion of vehicletrack systems,
while the nonlinear Hertz contact theory is used to
characterize the wheelrail interactions.
2.1. Hamilton principle
According to Clough and Penzien (1993) and Lou
(2005), the Hamilton principle is expressed by
Z t2 Z t2
 
 T~  V~ dt Wnc dt 0 1
t1 t1
where  denotes the variation symbol; T~ and V~ denote
the kinetic and potential energy for a dynamic system,
Xu et al. 3

respectively; and Wnc denotes the virtual work done by no longer continuously supported by the cement
the nonconservative forces. Equation (1) expresses a asphalt (CA) mortar, the rail pads are modeled as
variational principle towards the entire dynamic discrete massless springs with stiness krs and dampers
system, which indicates that the stationary value over with damping coecient crs connecting rail and slabs,
tiny time-interval integration of kinetic and potential CA mortar is modeled as continuous massless springs
energy and the work done by the nonconservative with stiness ksc and dampers with coecient csc con-
forces equals zero. necting slabs and CSL, and the subgrade bearing layer
Assuming the vehicletrack coupled system is a con- is modeled as continuous massless springs with stiness
servative system at an arbitrary integration time period kcs and dampers with coecient ccs connecting CSL
from t1 to t2 , the dynamic equation of motion of the and subgrade. kss and css denote the shear stiness
vehicletrack coupled system can be derived in sub- and damping. In Figure 2, lr denotes the length of rail
matrices form as element, ls denotes the length of slab element, lc denotes
the length of CSL element, and the black dots denote
 ( )  ( _ ) the nodes of the elements. The Hermitian cubic inter-
MVV 0 XV CVV 0 XV
polation polynomial is used as shape function of the
0 MTT XT 0 CTT X_T
     2 BernoulliEuler beam. As axial and transverse deform-
KVV 0 XV FV ations are neglected, each node of these beam elements

0 KTT XT FT will have two DOFs, namely the vertical displacement
and the rotation around an axis normal to the plane of
where M, C and K denote mass, damping and stiness paper.
sub-matrices, respectively. X and F denote sub-vectors
of displacement and force, respectively. The subscripts 2.2.2. Mass, stiffness and damping matrices of P-STE. The
V and T denote vehicle sub-system and track sub- displacement vector of P-STE is expressed as
system, respectively.
 T
dPSTE dL dR 3
2.2. P-STE with
2.2.1. Model. In this model, only the vibrations in the
vertical plane are discussed, while the axial and trans- 
dL yr1 r1 ys1 s1 yc1 c1 ys2 s2 yc2 c2
verse deformations of sub-structures of the slab track 
system are ignored. Due to the symmetry of rails in the dR ys3 s3 yc3 c3 yr2 r2 ys4 s4 yc4 c4
longitudinal direction, two rails of a track are
eectively treated as one in the subsequent analysis. The elements in the vectors of dL and dR are dened
The rail, slab and concrete supporting layer (CSL) are in Figure 2. As known from equation (3), the total
all modeled by a uniform BernoulliEuler beam. In the number of DOFs of P-STE is 20, which is represented
coupled railslabCSL-subgrade element, the slabs are by the notation NP-STE.

Figure 2. Particular slab track element.

4 Journal of Vibration and Control 0(0)

The stiness matrix of P-STE, with order of NP-STE corresponding to four DOFs of the two nodes of the
 NP-STE, can be written as beam element, all other elements are zero.
Similarly, the damping matrix of P-STE, with order
KePSTE Ker Kers Kes Kesc Kec Kecs KessV 4 NP-STE  NP-STE, can be written as

with CePSTE Cers Cesc Cecs Cess 6

Z lr
00 00 in which Cers , Cesc , Cecs and Cess are obtained by substitut-
Ker 2Er Ir Nr T Nr d; Kers krs NTrs Nrs : ing the stiness coecients krs , ksc , kcs and kss in the
0
Z ls Z ls corresponding matrices Kers , Kesc , Kecs and Kess with
00 00
Kes 2Es Is Ns T Ns d; Kesc 2ksc NTsc Nsc d: damping coecients crs , csc , ccs and css .
0 0 In the same way, the mass matrix of P-STE, with
Z lc
order of NP-STE  NP-STE, can be given by
Kes Ec Ic N00T 00
c Nc d;
0

Z ls Z lw 
Kecs kcs 2 NTcs Ncs d NTcs Ncs d : MePSTE Mer Mes Mec 7
0 0
Kess kss NTss Nss : with
Z lr Z ls
in which Er and Ir denote the Youngs modulus and
constant moment of inertia of the cross-section of the Mer m r NTr Nr d, Mes 2m s NTs Ns d and
0 0
rail, respectively; Es and Is are the Youngs modulus Z lc Z lw
and constant moment of inertia of the cross-section of Mec 2m c NTc Nc dm c NTc Nc d
the slabs, respectively; Ec and Ic describe the Youngs 0 0

modulus and constant moment of inertia of the cross-

section of the CSL, respectively; and Nr , Nrs , Ns , Nsc , where m r , m s and m c are mass per unit length of the rail,
Nc , Ncs and Nss represent the shape functions with the slab and CSL, respectively.
same order 1  20. In addition, Nr , Ns and Nc are
expressed as the Hermitian cubic interpolation func-
2.3. Matrices of slab track sub-system
tions, namely
 Particular slab track element can be viewed as a special

N N1 N2 N3 element for the slab track FEM. In most of the literature
N4
(Lei and Wang, 2014; Lou, 2005; Xu and Zhai, 2017;
with Yang et al., 2015; Zhai and Sun, 1994; Zhai et al., 2009),
the slab track is longitudinally cut into numerous cross-
 
N1 1  3=li 2 2=li 3 ; N2  1  2=li =li 2 ; section segments which are assumed to be identical in
  mechanical property and structural shape by neglecting
N3 3=li 2 2=li 3 ; N4  =li 2 =li ,
the expansion joints between track slabs.
Actually, P-STE can be degenerated into C-STE
where li i r, s, c is the length of the beam element, through connecting the right node of ith slab track
and the subscripts r, s, c correspond to Nr , Ns and element to the left node of the (i1)th slab track elem-
Nc , respectively; and  is the local coordinate indicating ent. Thus, a new C-STE is generated, that is, the jth
the distance from the left node of the beam element. slab element denoted by the red dashed lines in
00 00 00
Nr , Ns and Nc are the dierential forms of the Figure 2.
Hermitian cubic interpolation function with respect to The displacement vector of C-STE is the same as P-
spatial variable expressed by STE, and the matrices of stiness, damping and mass of
C-STE can be respectively written as
2
@ N
Nr 00 Ns 00 Nc 00 2 5 Z lw
@
e e e T
KCSTE KPSTE  KssV Es Is Ns 00 Ns 00 d 8
Moreover, the notations of Nrs , Nsc , Ncs and Nss can 0
be calculated by Nrs Nr  Ns , Nsc Ns  Nc , Ncs Nc
and Nss 1 1 , respectively. Z lw
e e e
It should be noted that the shape functions are gen- CCSTE CPSTE  Css csc NTsc Nsc d 9
0
erally sparse vectors, and apart from those elements
Xu et al.
Z lw
MeCSTE MePSTE m s
0
Undoubtedly, one can reduce the DOFs of C-STE
by deleting the two middle nodes in the slab element
and CSL element to obtain the track element with 12
DOFs (Yang et al., 2015).
In this present study, the element matrices of C-STE
and P-STE are assembled to form the slab track matri-
ces. The slab track system is regarded to be grouped by
numerous slab track elements (STEs), which can be
partitioned into several C-STEs and one P-STE, as
shown in Figure 1. Thus, the matrices of STE can be
written by
NX
CSTE
0 0
KeTSE KeCSTE,i KePSTE,i
i1
NX
CSTE
CeTSE
0
CeCSTE,i CePSTE,i
i1
NX
CSTE
0 0
MeTSE MeCSTE,i MePSTE,i
i1
where NCSTE is the number of C-STE in STE, and the
matrices in equations (11), (12) and (13) are all with the
same orders, the superscript e0 denotes that the matri-
ces of KeCSTE , KePSTE , CeCSTE , CePSTE , MeCSTE ,
MePSTE in equations (4), (6), (7), and (8)(10) will be
re-distributed into the stiness, damping and mass
matrix of STE according to their DOFs positions in
the STE based on the rule of set-in-right-position in
nite element method (Zeng and Yang, 1986).
2.4. Matrices of vehicle sub-system
The vehicle sub-system is modeled as a massspring
damper system consisting of a car body, two bogie
frames, four wheelsets and two-stage suspensions, as
shown in Figure 1. Each vehicle has 10 DOFs,
including the vertical and pitch motions at the center
of gravity of the car body, and rear and front bogie
frames, and the vertical motion of each the wheelsets.
Mc and Jc are the mass and rotational inertia of the car
body, Mt and Jt are the mass and rotational inertia of
the bogie frame, Mw is mass of the wheelset. The spring
and dashpot for the primary suspension are character-
ized by spring stiness kp and damping coecient cp,
respectively. Similarly, stiness ks and damping coe-
cient cs are used to represent the spring and dashpot of
secondary suspension between car body and bogie
frame. The vertical displacement of each wheelset is
independent from the displacement of the rails. It is
5
assumed that the downward and clockwise motions of
NTs Ns d 10
the vehicle are taken as positive, and the static equilib-
rium positions are viewed as the references of the
motions measured.
The detailed expressions of the mass, stiness and
damping matrices of the vehicle can be consulted in the
literature (Lou, 2005).
2.5. Wheelrail interaction model
The contact mechanism between the wheel and rail is
investigated by the nonlinear Hertzian contact theory
(Kalker, 1979; Newton and Clark, 1979):
(  3=2
KH ywr t ywr t 5 0
Fwr
V t i i 14
11 0 ywr t 5 0
i
0
12 with
2 Er
KH rw rr 1=4
3 1  v2
13
where Fwr
V is the wheelrail vertical interaction force,
KH is the contact stiness, and ywr i t is the relative
vertical displacements between the ith wheel and rails
at time t, which can be described by:
ywr tyw r
i tyi t  IRi t 15
i
where yw r
i t and yi t denote the vertical displacements
of the ith wheel and the rail of contact point at time t.
IRi(t) denotes the vertical irregularity of the rails.
3. Cyclic calculation method for
achieving infinite length calculation
Ferreira and Lopez-Pita (2015) assumed the railway
track to be a longitudinal periodic structure so as to
provide an opportunity to apply a modal reduction
method (MRM) (Balmes, 1996). Thus, a signicant
decrease of DOF is attained with the implementation
of the MRM, and high-eciency computation can be
obtained. Whereas, due to the noncontinuity of phy-
sico-mechanical properties, geometrical constructions,
and boundary conditions for slab track sub-structures
in the established model, it is powerless to employ the
MRM, and a new trail is urgently blazed.
As known from the previous description about this
model, the DOFs of the track sub-system will be too
huge to occupy computer memory and will reduce the
computing eciency if the length of the track model
subject to a moving vehicle is too long. Thus, a cyclic
6 Journal of Vibration and Control 0(0)

calculation method (CCM) is developed to properly lengths represented by (ncyl-1)N in equation (16),
handle these matters, as shown in Figure 3. as written by
In Figure 3, the sketchy description of the CCM is
presented, in which two coordinate systems (CS) are 1,4 n1,4 LTrk  L 17
dened, namely global CS, x  y, and local CS,
x0  y0 . M denotes the preliminary stage for mitigating (4) Conduct an equivalent substitution for sub-
the initial vibrations, N denotes the cyclic length, and L matrices and vectors of displacement, velocity
denotes the track length from the rst and last wheel- and acceleration in equation (8). Taking the
sets for properly reducing the boundary eects of sub- Newmark method (Newmark, 1959) as an exam-
matrices in equation (2) and advancing the eciency in ple, if the response of equation (8) exists at time t,
time-domain integrations. the response of the system at time (tt) can be
For programming CCM, the steps below can be fol- determined by:
lowed for reference:
K a1 M a2 CXtt Ftt
(1) Calculate the running distance of vehicle over M,    
M a1 Xt a3 X _ t a4 X
t C a2 Xt a5 X
_ t a6 X
t
represented by lv v  t  i  1 in which v is the
speed of the vehicle, t is the integral time step, 18
and i is the discrete step for time integration. 
X _ t  a6 X
_ tt a2 Xtt  Xt  a5 X t 19
(2) Figure out the local DOFs vector (0cyl of track
sub-system subject to the moving vehicle in local 
CS. First of all, the position points within which X t  a4 X
tt a1 Xtt  Xt  a3 X t 20
the track elements will be intercepted into the
matrices of MTT, KTT and CTT are needed to be
investigated as follows in which a1 a6 are computing parameters, whose detail
  expressions can be consulted (Newmark, 1959).
1,4 n1,4 LTrk  ncyl  1 N  L 16 In equations (18), (19) and (20), [K], [M] and [C] are
assembled by
" # " #
in which the subscripts 1 and 4 denote the positions KTT 0 MTT 0
that are L length from the 1st wheelset onward, and 4th K , M ,
0 KVV (0cyl (0cyl 0 MVV (0cyl (0cyl
wheelset backward, respectively; LTrk denotes the " #
length of slab track element. ncyl denotes the number CTT 0
of cyclic calculations, which can be expressed by C , respectively:
0 CVV (0cyl (0cyl
ncyl lv =LTrk  1, where [ ] represents the integral
symbol towards zero.
Through equation (16), one can conveniently obtain _ t and X
Similarly, Xt , X t are assembled by
the initial and end number of the DOF, that is, 1 and
 
4 , from the whole DOFs coding sequence of the track _ t X
Xt XV XT (cyl T , X _V X
_T t X
T , X V X
T T ,
(cyl (cyl
sub-system. Accordingly, one is informed that
(0cyl 1 : 4 . respectively.
Through the above steps, one can clearly observe
(3) Determine the global DOFs vector (cyl of track that no matter how long the calculation length is, the
sub-system subject to the moving vehicle in global analytical procedures will be continued regularly and
CS. Actually, it is just needed to remove the cyclic uninterrupted only on the very nite length of the

x' x'
x y' y'
L L L L

y
M N

N + 2 L + 2( LC + LT )

Figure 3. Cyclic calculation method.

Xu et al. 7

track FE model satisfying the condition that the track Tables 1> and 2, and the running speed of the vehicle
length is larger than (N2 L2(LCLT)). is 350 km/h.

4. Case studies 4.1. Validations

In this section, the emphases will be put on the valid- The validations are illustrated from two aspects:
ations of the proposed models, and some interesting
computational examples are also conducted. I. consider a moving vehicle on the ballastless track
In the calculations, the dynamic properties of the structures with track irregularities included. The
vehicle and the tracks are listed in Appendix dynamic responses derived from the vertical 2-D
model presented in this paper are compared with
the results calculated by the 3-D model by Xu and
Zhai (2017).
(a) 300
II. the applicability of the proposed CCM is vali-
dated by comparing with the FPE method used
Wheel-rail force (kN)

in Zhai and Sun (1994) and Zhai et al. (2009) .

2-D
200
3-D
Figure 4 plots the comparisons between the 2-D
100 model and the 3-D model on dynamic performance of
indices, that isi, wheel/rail vertical force. In spite of the
theoretical discrepancies between these two models, the
0 calculated results show a pretty good agreement both in
0 50 100 150
Moved distance (m) the time domain and in the frequency domain.
However, compared with the 3-D model, the 2-D
(b) 1010
2-D model helps to improve the computational eciency
3-D because of the drastic reduction of DOFs. The central
PSD (kN2/(1/m))

5
10 processing unit (CPU) times for the 2-D model and the
3-D model are 225 s and 456 s on a personal computer
10
0
with 3.4 GHz and Intel (R) i7 CPU, indicating that the
computational time will be reduced by 50% in general
-5 by adopting the 2-D model.
10 -3 -2 -1 0 1
10 10 10 10 10 To investigate the eciency of the CCM, a case is
Frequency (1/m) conducted by making the vehicle move sucient dis-
tance (about 10000 m) along the track structures. It is
Figure 4. Comparisons of wheelrail force between a two- obviously impossible to model that length of tracks by
dimensional model and a three-dimensional model: (a) time the FEM on a personal computer. Though the FPE
domain; (b) frequency domain. method can be implemented to realize the innite
Vertical acceleration of car body (g)

0.02
0.06 CCM
0
-0.02 FPE
0.04
3000 3010 3020 3030 3040 3050
0.02

-0.02

-0.04
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000 10000
Moved distance (m)

Figure 5. Comparisons of vertical acceleration of car body between cyclic calculation method (CCM) and fixed-point excitation
(FPE).
8 Journal of Vibration and Control 0(0)

length calculation, the relative movements between the 4.2. Approaches to dynamic analysis of
vehicles and the track and the derived resonance eects vehicletrack systems on effects of rail
will be ignored, besides, it is nonapplicable to a FE
random irregularities
model (Jin et al., 2013). Figure 5 displays the compari-
sons between CCM and FPE on vertical accelerations The eects of rail irregularities on the dynamic
of car body excited by rail prole geometries. As seen responses of vehicletrack systems have been investi-
from Figure 5, the results of CCM coincide with those gated in a number of papers with dierent forms, for
of FPE applied by Zhai et al. (2009) though there exists example, possibly assumed as the harmonic waves on
an unavoidable discrepancy within 5%. the rail prole (Sadheghi et al., 2016), or the geometries
data intercepted from track portions (Vale and
Calcada, 2014), or inversed from the statistical power
spectral densities (PSDs) (Zhai et al., 2009).
Due to the cyclic loads induced by the circulation of
trains, it is inevitable to face the degradation of track
geometric qualities. For better grasping and probing
Amplitude of irregularities (mm)

10 into the complete outlook of the vehicle/track vibra-

tions due to track geometries in a statistical way, the
5 full attributes of rail irregularities including amplitudes
and wavelengths must be included in the dynamic
0
calculations.
-5
Plotted in Figure 6 are the track irregularities mea-
sured on a certain Chinese high-speed line by the track
-10 inspection car, where the length of the track irregularity
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 data is about 275 km. It is certainly the most secure way
Distance along the track (km)
to obtain the full dynamic responses of the vehicle
track systems by loading all of the track irregularities
Figure 6. Track irregularities measured from a high-speed line. into the interaction model, which can be properly

(a) (b)
4 0.06
CCM-VTIM CCM-VTIM
TIPM-VTIM
3 TIPM-VTIM
0.04
PDF

PDF

0.02
1

0
-1.5 -1 -0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 0
0 50 100 150
Acceleration of car body (m/s2) Wheel/rail force (kN)
(c) (d)
8 0.04
CCM-VTIM CCM-VTIM
6 TIPM-VTIM TIPM-VTIM
0.03
PDF

PDF

4 0.02

2 0.01

0 0
0 0.5 1 1.5 -500 0 500 1000
Rail displacement (mm) Rail acceleration (m/s2)

Figure 7. Probability density function (PDF) comparisons between cyclic calculation method (CCM)vehicleslab track interaction
model (VTIM) and track irregularity probabilistic model (TIPM)-VTIM. (a) acceleration of car body; (b) wheel/rail force; (c) rail
displacement; (d) rail acceleration.
Xu et al. 9

realized by the 2-D model denoted by the vehicleslab
track interaction model (VTIM) and CCM. While this
kind of treatment is inevitably of low eciency because
of the massive computational length.
Xu and Zhai (2017) proposed a track irregularity
probabilistic model to simulate representative and real-
istic track irregularity sets for a faster execution on
statistical analysis of vehicletrack system vibrations.
The abbreviated procedures can be followed by
(1) Divide the measured track irregularities Ts into
N segments, namely
Ts [ T~sk
where s denotes the mileage of the track,
k 1, 2, . . . , N, s~k 2 Stot k  1=N, Stot k=N.
(a) 0 ~
10
(2) Set  as the power spectral density (PSD) oper-
ator, and the PSD of T~sk can be obtained by
Pk T~sk .
(3) With a series of derivations, the probability dens-
ity function (PDF) of Pk denoted by Pk can
be derived.
(4) Based on the timefrequency transformation
approach (Fries and Coey, 1990), the equivalent
~ sk used as the
time domain track irregularities T~
exciting inputs of the interaction model can be
performed on Pk, and it is regarded that
PkT~ ~ sk .
(5) With cognition of the probability distribution
of Pk, it is rather convenient to select a repre-
21
sentative PSD function, that is, Pi k, in which i is
the select sample of PSD, i1, 2, . . . , N, ~ using
random simulation methods (Landau and
Binder, 2000). Generally, it is obvious that
N~  N, while the statistical properties of Ts is
without denite loss but contained in Pi k
(i1, 2, . . . , N).

It is therefore feasible to conduct the stochastic ana-

PSD (m2/s3)

-5
10
CCM-VTIM
lysis of vehicletrack systems subject to rail random
-10
TIPM-VTIM irregularities by two approaches: one is directly adopt-
10 ing CCM and VTIM; the other is introducing the track
irregularity probabilistic model (TIPM) to reduce the
-15
10 -1 0 1 2 3
cost of computation of VTIM. Figure 7 and Figure 8
10 10 10 10 10
Frequency (Hz) present the comparisons for dynamic responses of indi-
(b) 5
ces from aspects of PDF statistics and ensemble aver-
10
CCM-VTIM age PSD.
TIPM-VTIM As seen from Figure 7, the excellent coincidence has
PSD (kN2/Hz)

been achieved between the results of both the two

0
10 approaches, namely CCMVTIM and TIPMVTIM
on amplitudes and the corresponding statistical prob-
abilities. Moreover, it can be learned that the maximum
-5 responses of dynamic indices are both within the limits,
10 -1
10 10
0
10
1
10
2
10
3
so the vertical interactions between the railway vehicle
Frequency (Hz) and the tracks are tender enough to guarantee the run-
(c) 5 ning performance of the vehicle.
10
CCM-VTIM
TIPM-VTIM
PSD (m2/s3)

2
10
0
10
0
10
PSD (m /s )
3
2

-2
10
-5
10 -1 0 1 2 3
10 10 10 10 10 -4
Frequency (Hz) 10

-6
10
-1 0 1 2 3
Figure 8. Power spectral density (PSD) comparisons between 10 10 10 10 10
cyclic calculation method (CCM) vehicle-slab track interaction Frequency (Hz)

model (VTIM) and track irregularity probabilistic model (TIPM)-

VTIM. (a) vertical acceleration of car body; (b) wheel/rail force; Figure 9. Ensemble average power spectral density (PSD) of
(c) vertical acceleration of the first wheelset. rail irregularities presented in Figure 6.
10
Similarly, ensemble average PSDs of the representa-
tive dynamic indices are plotted in Figure 8 to show the
frequency characteristics of the dynamic responses,
from which it can be observed that little discrepancy
lies between the results of CCMVTIM and TIPM
VTIM. Thereby, the rail geometries generated by
TIPM conserve the frequency properties of the original
measured data. In addition, the characteristic frequen-
cies appearing at PSD congurations are found to agree
with the characteristic frequencies of rail irregularities
shown in Figure 9.
5. Concluding remarks
In this paper, a more versatile VTIM is proposed by
considering the discontinuity of track slabs, and a novel
CCM is also developed to achieve the innite length
computations. The reliability and eectiveness of
VTIM and CCM are validated by comparing with a
more comprehensive 3-D model and the xed-point
excitation method.
Besides, statistical analysis is further conducted by
considering the big data of rail irregularities from
aspects of PDF statistics and ensemble average PSD.
In the analytical procedures, a TIPM is introduced to
improve the computational eciency by greatly redu-
cing the rail irregularity inputs but guaranteeing the
completeness of the geometrical characteristics of rail
irregularities. The illustrative examples perfectly show
the feasibility of TIPM in simulating representative and
realistic rail irregularities with high eciency, and fur-
ther validate the reliability of CCM in dealing with
large length calculations.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following nancial sup-
port for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article: This work was supported by the National Basic
Research Program of China (973 Program)] under Grant
numbers 2013CB036206, 2013CB036205; the National
Natural Science Fund under Grant number 51478482;
51678507; and the Program of Introducing Talents of
Discipline to Universities (111 Project) Grant number B1604.
References
Balmes E (1996) Use of generalized interface degrees of free-
dom in component mode synthesis. In: XIV IMAC
International Modal Analysis Conference, Dearborn.
Available at: http://www.sdtools.com/pdf/IMAC96int.
pdf (accessed 2017).
Journal of Vibration and Control 0(0)
Clough RW and Penzien J (1993) Dynamics of Structures, 2nd
ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Dong RG (1994) Vertical dynamics of railway vehicle-track
system. PhD Thesis, Concordia University, Canada.
Esveld C (2001) Modern Railway Track. Zaltbommel, The
Netherlands: MRT-Productions.
Ferreira PA and Lopez-Pita A (2015) Numerical modeling of
high speed train/track system for the reduction of vibra-
tion levels and maintenance needs of railway tracks.
Construction and Building Materials 79(1): 1421.
Fries RH and Coffey BM (1990) A state-space approach to
the synthesis of random vertical and cross-level rail irre-
gularities. Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement and
Control 112(1): 8387.
Hou K, Kalousek J and Dong (2003) A dynamic model for an
asymmetrical vehicle/track system. Journal of Sound and
Vibration 267(3): 591604.
Jin XS, Xiao XB, Ling L, et al. (2013) Study on safety bound-
ary for high-speed train running in severe environments.
International Journal of Rail Transportation 1(12):
87108.
Kouroussis G, Connolly DP, Alexandrou G, et al. (2015) The
effect of railway local irregularities on ground vibration.
Transportation Research Part D: Transport and
Environment 39(1): 1730.
Kalker JJ (1979) Survey of wheel rail rolling-contact theory.
Vehicle System Dynamics 8(4): 317358.
Landau DP and Binder K (2000) A Guide to Monte Carlo
Simulations in Statistical Physics, 2nd ed. New York,
NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Lei X and Wang J (2014) Dynamic analysis of the train and
slab track coupling system with finite elements in a moving
frame of reference. Journal of Vibration and Control 20(9):
13011317.
Lou P (2005) A vehicletrackbridge interaction element con-
sidering vehicles pitching effect. Finite Elements in
Analysis and Design 41(4): 397427.
Newton S and Clark R (1979) An investigation into the
dynamic effects on the track of wheel flats on railway
vehicles. Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science
21(4): 287297.
Newmark NM (1959) A method of computation for struc-
tural dynamics. Journal of the Engineering Mechanical
Division, ASCE 85(3): 6794.
Nguyen K, Goicolea JM and Galbadon F (2014) Comparison
of dynamic effects of high-speed traffic load on ballasted
track using a simplified two-dimensional and full three-
dimensional model. Proceedings of the Institution of
Mechanical Engineers, Part F: Journal of Rail and Rapid
Transit 228(2): 128142.
Paixao A, Fortunato E and Calcada R (2001) The effect of
differential settlements on the dynamic response of the
train-track system: A numerical study. Engineering
Structures 88: 216224.
Sadeghi J, Khajehdezfuly A, Esmaeili M, et al. (2016)
Dynamic interaction of vehicle and discontinuous slab
track considering nonlinear Hertz contact model. Journal
of Transportation Engineering 142(4): 04016011.
Song H, Bian X, Chen Y, et al. (2011) An analytical approach
for slab track vibration with traintrackground coupling
Xu et al. 11

effect. In Proceedings of the 8th International Conference
on Structural Dynamics, Leuven, Belgium, 46 July 2011,
pp. 852858.
Steenbergen MJMM, Metrikine AV and Esveld C (2007)
Assessment of design parameters of a slab track railway
system from a dynamic viewpoint. Journal of Sound and
Vibration 306(12): 361371.
Vale C and Calcada R (2014) A dynamic vehicletrack inter-
action model for predicting the track degradation process.
Journal of Infrastructure Systems 20(3): 113.
Xu L and Zhai W (2017) A new model for temporalspatial
stochastic analysis of vehicletrack coupled systems. Vehicle
System Dynamics 55(3): 427448.
Yang X, Gu S, Zhou S, et al. (2015) Effect of track irregu-
larity on the dynamic response of a slab track under a
high-speed train based on the composite track element
method. Applied Acoustics 99: 7284.
Zeng Q and Yang P (1986) The set-in-right-position rule
for forming structural matrices and the finite truss-element
method for space analysis of truss bridges. Journal of the
China Railway Society 8(2): 4859.
Zhai W and Sun X (1994) A detailed model for investigating
vertical interactions between railway vehicle and track.
Vehicle System Dynamics 23(S1): 603615.
Zhai W, Wang K and Cai C (2009) Fundamentals of vehicle
track coupled dynamics. Vehicle System Dynamics 47(11):
13491376.
Zhai W, Liu P, Lin J, et al. (2015) Experimental investigation
on vibration behaviour of a CRH train at speed of 350 km/h.
International Journal of Rail Transportation 3(1): 116.

Appendix

Appendix Table 1. Discontinuous slab track properties.

Part Property Value Unit Symbol

Rail Elastic modulus 2.11011 N/m2 Er

Sectional moment of inertia 3.09105 m4 Ir
Mass per unit length 60.8 kg/m mr
Fastening system Fastening space 0.65 m LF
Railpad stiffness 60 MN/m krs
Railpad damping 75 kNs/m crs
Track slabs Slab length 6.5 m Ls
Elastic modulus 3.51010 N/m2 Es
Sectional moment of inertia 6.69104 m4 Is
Mass per unit length 2500 kg/m ms
Cementasphalt (CA) mortar CA stiffness 1250 MN/m ksc
CA damping 83 kNs/m csc
Concrete supporting layer Elastic modulus 4.21010 N/m2 Ec
Sectional moment of inertia 3.2103 m4 Ic
Mass per unit length 2500 kg/m mc
Subgrade Stiffness 60 MN/m kcs
Damping 90 kNs/m ccs
12 Journal of Vibration and Control 0(0)

Appendix Table 2. Vehicle properties.

Parameter Value Unit

3
Car body mass/kg 31.99410 Mc
Bogie mass/kg 3.333103 Mt
Wheelset mass/kg 1.65103 Mw
Mass moment of inertia of the 2.1106 Jc
car body/(kgm2)
Mass moment of inertia of the 3.2103 Jt
bogie/(kgm2)
Primary suspension 2.36 kp
stiffness/(MN/m)
Primary suspension 80 cp
damping/(kNs/m)
Secondary suspension 0.8 ks
stiffness/(MN/m)
Secondary suspension 100 cs
damping/(kNs/m)
Distance between bogies 8.75 Lc
center/m
Distance between wheelsets 1.25 Lt
center in a bogie/m

View publication stats