Abstract
Compatibility between high speed running stability and good curving performance of railway vehicles has long been considered. In the design of vehicle parameters, the axle supporting stiffness is important to solve the problem. In order to realize higher level of compatibility, the authors propose the single-axle self-steering bogie based upon extending the theory of equivalent stiffness model into frequency domain. The proposed secondary longitudinal suspension mechanism replacing springs to dampers enables both of leading and trailing wheelsets to realize ideal curving performance on tight curved track while achieving high speed running stability. In order to verify the performance of the newly developed steering truck, experimental platform with 1/10 scale model vehicle is originally made. In this paper, the idea and theory of steering bogie are explained while considering the actual bogie mechanism consists of a single-axle bogie, bolster and yaw dampers. Experimental results using the scale model vehicle with two single-axle bogies show excellent performance in which creep forces are dramatically reduced while having enough hunting stability.
