On the Optimization of the Semi-Active Suspension for a Railway Vehicle

Abstract

In this study, a nine-degrees-of-freedom full wagon railway model with linear parameters is used to study the vehicle's vibrational response on the random rail data collected by Turkish State Railways Research Center (TCDD-DATEM). The performance of suspension system is determined by comparing the body vertical, pitch and roll accelerations, and suspension travels to assess ride comfort and handling properties of the vehicle. The semi-active suspension system is designed for three different controllers; skyhook, groundhook and hybrid since these approaches feature simplicity and lower cost compared to their active counterparts. For the proposed controllers, their effectiveness is validated by simulation results performed in MATLAB by comparing the achieved time responses. Copyright (C) 2020 The Authors.