Abstract
In computing the response of railway vehicles on a suspension bridge under the horizontal excitation due to winds or earthquakes, each vehicle has often been modeled as a mass-spring-system composed of three rigid masses, representing one car body and two wheel sets, connected by springs, representing linkage leaf-springs and wheel-rail interaction. Although the mechanical characteristics of springs play a crucial role, they are difficult to determine experimentally when viscous and frictional dampings are remarkable as well as non-linearity. In this paper a technique is presented to evaluate the dynamic characteristics of springs experimentally. Using a 1/5-scaled model the hysteresis curves of each spring are plotted, and they are compared with those estimated from static experiments. Then noticeable dynamic effects on them of the input frequency and amplitude are observed.
