Modelling requirements for the design of active stability control strategies for a high speed bogie

The paper presents the findings of a study on active stability control and simulation for a railway bogie vehicle. For control design a planview partial railway vehicle model is described. This is a simplified model derived from research experience and appropriate modelling, and a frequency domain analysis illustrates the problems associated with system instability. A multi-body dynamics software, SIMPACK1, is used to generate a detailed non-linear full vehicle model for simulation and control assessment. Model order reduction methods, both empirically and analytically based, are used to simplify the linear model generated from SIMPACK for further system analysis and control designs based upon the complex model. Comparisons between the simplified plan-view model and the exported reduced-order model are presented.