Atsushi Iwamoto

Wheel/rail friction control with feedback system detecting yaw moment of wheelset

In the subway lines of Tokyo Metro, there are many tight curves that may cause squeal noise, excessive rail/wheel wear and also rail corrugation. To solve these serious problems, an onboard friction control system has been developed by the authors and has been equipped on some commercial trains [Y. Suda, H. Komine, T. Iwasa, M. Tomeoka, K. Matsumoto, N. Ubukata, M. Tanimoto, M. Nakata, and T. Nakai, Improvement of curving performance with friction control between wheel and rail, The 17th IAVSD Symposium Poster Session, Lyngby, Denmark, August, 2001; Y. Suda, H. Komine, T. Iwasa, T. Fujii, Tomeoka, K. Matsumoto, N. Ubukata, M. Tanimoto, M. Nakata, and T. Nakai, Experiment and analysis for improvement of curving performance with friction control between wheel and rail, Veh. Syst. Dynam. 41(Suppl.) (2004), pp. 507–516.]. With the system, in order to obtain the enough effect of friction control steadily, it is natural that an appropriate quantity of friction modifier should be required [K. Matsumoto, Y. Suda, T. Fujii, H. Komine, M. Tomeoka, Y. Sato, T. Nakai, M. Tanimoto, and Y. Kishimoto, The optimum design of an onboard friction control system between wheel and rail in a railway system for improved curving negotiation, Veh. Syst. Dynam. 44(Suppl.) (2006), pp. 531–540]. On such a viewpoint, the authors propose a new friction control system with the detection of yaw moment acting on the running wheelset. In this paper, first, outline of conventional feed-forward control system is introduced; secondly, the concept of feedback friction control system is presented considering the results of the multi-body dynamics simulations, and finally some field running test results of the developed system are discussed.