CONTROL SYSTEM DESIGN OF A SEMIACTIVE ANTI-ROLL BAR TILT SYSTEM FOR RAILWAY VEHICLE

INTRODUCTION
Issue on railway vehicle dynamics:

-Operating speed are increase to minimize cost and transportation time

-As speed increase, safety & comfort become major concern: Safety how to eliminate the cause of derailment involved with interaction between wheel and rail Comfort how to control unwanted vibration & noise - by using active or semi-active system into railway vehicle suspension system

In railway vehicle there are three principle areas of application of active/semi suspension:
1.Car body active tilting system

to improve ride comfort in curve by reducing lateral acc. - Lean the vehicle inward on curves to reduce acceleration felt by the passengers

2. Active Secondary suspension system to improve vehicle response to track irregularities 3. Active Primary suspension system to improve stability & guidance - reduce hunting phenomenon (wheel/rail geom.) this research will concentrate on active/semi-active tilting system
Hunting phenomenon in curve track

Problem statement
- Modern R.V with active tilting use either some form of inclined links or roller bolster to provided the tilting action require many additional components, which will increase weight & mechanical complexity. - The traditional R.V have anti-roll torsion bar to reduce roll effect during negotiating in curve - The idea of this research is to modify this passive system by adding controllable (active) elements to the anti-roll bar assembly, which can be used to tilt the vehicle body in order to reduce the acceleration during curves

Anti-roll bar

Research Objectives
The fundamental objective of this research is to develop active anti-roll titling system for railway vehicle. The objectives of this research can be summarized as follows:
To develop a detailed computer model of railway vehicle for

computational modeling focusing on the lateral and roll dynamics.

To develop control strategy for the active anti-roll tilting system

To test and validate the active anti-roll tilting system experimentally on scaled railway vehicle model on roller test rig and real railway vehicle.

Literature Review Literature study on established researches of railway vehicle dynamics will be conducted. Recent development on railway vehicle computational modeling and active/ semi-active suspension system to be implemented for active tilting system of railway vehicle will also be reviewed. Mathematical Model Formulation In this stage the formulation for dynamic modeling of railway vehicle will be formulate. Data Collection & Measurement of Railway Vehicle Dynamics Parameters Dynamic parameters such as weight, size, wheelset geometry, rail geometry and components location on a railway vehicle system will be measured and recorded will be used as input parameters for computer simulation in ADAMS/Rail. The KTMB railway vehicle will be used as a reference model.

Development of railway vehicle model for Multibody Dynamic Analysis The complex model of railway vehicle using computational multibody dynamic will be developed based on parametric measurement of dynamic parameters of the KTMB railway vehicle. The theory of wheel-rail interaction will be applied. The development of the model will be focused on fully nonlinearity formulation and computational algorithms.

Development of Control Strategy for anti-roll bar tilting system

The appropriate control structure will be develop using computer simulation. The best control strategies from the simulation result will then be implemented and tested on the roller test rig using scaled model of railway vehicle.

Model Testing & Experiment on Scaled Model of Railway Vehicle on Test Rig The developed model will be tested on the roller test rig for passive and active/semi-active anti-roll bar tilting system with varying vehicle speed and lateral displacement of the wheel-track. Responses of the passive system will be used as a benchmark. Analysis and Comparison The data obtained from experimental will be compared with the theory/simulation result. Any interesting phenomena will be analyzed. Idealization parameters will be reviewed if great discrepancies occur between theory and experiment. Thesis Writing / Dissemination of Research Findings The final phase of the project to conclude the work is report writing. Some research findings will also be published in International Journals.