Abstract
The effect of passengers boarding on a railway vehicle is usually considered as additional mass in designing carbody. This means that natural frequencies of flexural vibrations of a carbody are decreased as the number of passenger increases. However, previous researches, in which some stationary excitation tests were carried out for actual railway vehicles, indicate that on-board passengers behave not as additional mass but as damping. In this report, the authors examine the damping effect by passengers in running condition. A series of running test using a Shinkansen-train was conducted, and relatively large reduction of flexural vibration of carbody was observed when passengers were on-board. We also tried to imitate or simulate the damping effect by passengers using flexible polyethylene tanks filled with water. As a result of excitation test for a commuter-type test vehicle, at least two-different modes of flexural vibration were reduced when water tanks (total 630-1050 kg) were loaded.
