Research on the Influence of Rail Fastener Stiffness upon Dynamic Performance of Vehicle-Track System

Track model was built by finite element method. Steel rail was simulated with Euler beam elements, and track bed was simulated with continuum elements. Vehicle was a collection of multi rigid bodies based on multi-body dynamics methods. The rigid-flexible coupling system was connected by Hertz contact method. The experimental results provided support for the model accuracy. The simulation results show that lower rail fastener stiffness have detrimental effect on vehicle dynamics performance, but is beneficial to track vibration damping. This characteristic of fastener is inversely proportional to vehicle velocity. Different fastener can be used on the railway line by considering the vehicle velocity.