Influence of stiffness characteristics of a railway track on output parameters in a multibody model

The article is aimed at the research of the influence of stiffness characteristics included in a model of a railway track, which is the part of a multibody system. The other part of the multibody model is a railway vehicle. Authors are focused on the investigation of response of some selected output parameters under various values of input of stiffness and damping coefficients. The interaction of a railway vehicle and a railway track is studied. A passenger railway vehicle has been chosen for presented research. Outputs parameters are chosen in the passenger ride comfort point of view and the running safety point of view. The passenger ride comfort can be evaluated either by the direct method, when a real vehicle runs on a track and passengers evaluate a vehicle by means of their feelings during the ride or by means of the indirect method, when accelerometers are used for measuring accelerations in various positions of a tested wagon and subsequently values of accelerations are processed in required way. Then, the ride comfort is calculated and indexed by means of ride comfort indices. In the presented work, the indirect method has been used. In the computer multibody model of the wagon accelerations on a floor have been detected and the mean ride comfort for a person is assessed. The ride safety is most often determined by waveforms of vertical wheel forces, lateral wheel forces and the derailment quotient