Abstract
This work presents a study to reduce flexural vibrations of rail vehicle carbody which have large impact on the ride quality utilizing elastic deformation of an elastic body as a dynamic vibration absorber (DVA). A donut-shape (called "torus" in this study) is proposed as the elastic body considering practical application to rail vehicles. It is demonstrated that the shape and the size of a torus with desired natural frequency can be determined by the finite element (FE) model described here. A torus dedicated to a DVA for rail vehicles made of rubber filled with water is designed and manufactured actually. A series of stationary vibration tests on a commuter-type test vehicle with stainless steel carbody is conducted by applying up to 20 tori to validate the DVA effect. The mass of the torus used in this study is 12kg/piece (including water), and the mass ratio versus carbody is less than 2% when 20 tori are mounted. As a result of the vibration tests on actual vehicle, two different flexural vibration modes of the carbody are reduced simultaneously, and a multi-modal reduction effect by the elastic torus has been confirmed successfully.
