Analysis of technical and operational characteristics of turning-and-shunting door opening mechanism of electric public transport

Abstract

One of the most important problems occurring while designing public transport vehicles consists in providing an effective control of the door opening systems. The methods of carrying out the investigations presented in the paper include structural and kinematic analysis of the door opening mechanisms and simulation of their operation in applied software. The paper analyses the design and operational peculiarities of the turning-and-shunting mechanism of door opening of electric public transport. The corresponding design of the mechanism is proposed. It is suggested to be driven by pneumatic drive. The simplified diagram of the mechanism is constructed. Structural and kinematic analysis of the mechanism is performed, and the analytical dependencies for describing the motion of its links during the door opening/closing are derived. The main kinematic parameters of the studied mechanism are investigated on the basis of the derived analytical dependencies in MathCAD software, as well as by means of simulating the motion of the solid-state model of the mechanism designed in SolidWorks software. The conclusions about the agreement of the results of theoretical investigations performed on the basis of numerical solving the obtained motion equations and of the virtual experiment (motion simulation in SolidWorks software) are drawn. The analysis of energy efficiency of the investigated turning-and-shunting door opening mechanism of electric public transport is carried out. Prescribing the resistance force acting on the door leaf and calculating the corresponding door motion speed during its closing, the dependency of the nominal power supply of the mechanism drive as a function of corresponding generalized coordinates was deduced. Analyzing the obtained results, the authors have established that the necessary nominal power of the turning-and-shunting mechanism drive is almost twice larger than the necessary nominal power of the widely used leaning-and-shunting mechanism. Further investigations on the subject of the paper can be performed in the direction of developing different control systems providing safe and reliable operation of the considered door opening mechanism driven be electric and pneumatic actuators.