Abstract
The previous studies, referring to improving the ride comfort of railway vehicles related to the carbodies' vertical bending vibration, generally focus on reducing so-called "first bending mode" of the carbody. However, not only the first bending mode of the carbodies, but the vibration with their shear deformation (i.e. the vertical section of the carbody becomes a rhombus shape) often affects the ride comfort of passengers. In this study, the authors have proposed "corner braces" which combine the floor/roof structures with the side structure to constrain the deformation of the section of the carbody. Excitation tests on the rolling stock test plant have been carried out for two types of test vehicles with stainless steel carbodies, one of which is carbody frame alone and the other is the complete vehicle with the same condition as the commercial commuter type vehicles. The effect on the carbody made of the aluminum alloy, have also been investigated by the normal mode analysis with the finite element model (FEM). The results of the excitation tests or the numerical analysis have shown that the proposed corner braces successfully improve the rigidity of the carbodies and the natural frequencies of the carbody have risen.
