Prevention of Carbody Vibration of Railway Vehicles Induced by Imbalanced Wheelsets with Displacement-Dependent Rubber Bush

This paper discusses the issue of carbody excitation of railway vehicles due to rotation of imbalanced wheelsets and proposes a simple and cost-effective countermeasure. The basic mechanisms of the carbody excitation are first described, then a displacement-dependent rubber bush, which is used for the connection between bogie frame and carbody, is proposed. The displacement-dependent property is realized by introducing a small gap between the rubber and the inner fixture, and the transmission of excitation force with high-frequency and small displacement are isolated by the gap. The small gap can be created naturally just by skipping the bonding process of rubber and inner fixture, so it is very simple and cost-effective countermeasure against this issue. The stiffness property can be tailored to meet the requirements from motional properties of the bogie by applying a Finite Element Analysis (FEA). The effectiveness and validity of the displacement-dependent rubber bushes applied for traction links are investigated and confirmed by both numerical calculation and excitation test using a full-scale test vehicle in the rolling stock testing plant.