ABSTRACT
I. Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 507
II. A Brief History of Scaled Roller Rigs............................................................................... 508
III. Survey of Current Scaled Roller Rigs ............................................................................... 508
A. The Scaled Rig of DLR ............................................................................................. 508
1. Design Overview................................................................................................. 509
B. The Scaled Rig of MMU ........................................................................................... 509
1. Design Overview................................................................................................. 509
C. The Scaled Rig of INRETS ....................................................................................... 510
1. Design Overview................................................................................................. 512
IV. Roller Rigs: The Scaling Problem ..................................................................................... 512
A. The Scaling Strategy of MMU .................................................................................. 515
1. Principles ............................................................................................................. 515
2. Materials .............................................................................................................. 515
3. Equations of Motion ........................................................................................... 516
4. Scaling and Wheel-Rail/Roller Forces.............................................................. 516
B. The Scaling Strategy of DLR .................................................................................... 519
C. The Scaling Strategy of INRETS .............................................................................. 521
D. Tabular Comparison of Scaling Strategies ................................................................ 523
V. Scaling Errors ..................................................................................................................... 523
VI. Conclusions ........................................................................................................................ 525
Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................ 525
References..................................................................................................................................... 526
The use of roller rigs for the investigation of railway vehicle dynamics has been discussed in
Chapter 14. Their operation, application, and the changes in vehicle response introduced due to
geometric and kinematic differences between running a rail vehicle on rollers, as opposed to track,
were described in detail. Full scale rigs are a useful tool when assessing the dynamic performance
of a prototype vehicle, especially in the days when numerical simulation of vehicle dynamics was
not as well developed as it is today, but their frequency of use for prototype design is in decline,
as computer techniques become more popular. Their high costs act against their widespread use.
