The Optimization of the Rubber Bushing Stiffness of a Composite Bogie Frame

초록

In order to reduce the weight of the railway vehicles, a glass-fiber-reinforced plastic(GFRP) composite bogie frame is designed and manufactured. The lightweight GFRP bogie frame is designed to not only sustain heavy static and dynamic loads but also have a primary suspension function. However, the composite bogie needs a guiding system of the wheel set. In the bogie system, the rubber bushing was applied to guide the wheel sets. The rubber bushing was installed inside of the axle box assembly and fastens to the composite bogie frame using the bolts. Because the driving performance depends on the characteristic of the rubber bushing elements, the dynamic performance has to be evaluated along the different bushing stiffness values. In this study, the optimization of the rubber bushing was performed through changing the radial stiffness of the rubber bushing such as from 10MN/m to 100MN/m. From the multi-body dynamic analysis, all the cases satisfied the objective functions like critical speed, ride comfort, dynamic derailment index, and wheel unloading ratio. The critical speed which represents the running stability of a railway vehicle was highest at the bushing stiffness of 80MN/m. In the other performance indexes, the lower the bushing stiffness was, the better the performance indexes were.