ABSTRACT
The development of new rail vehicles or the investigation of the vehicle dynamic behaviour of existing vehicles requires the application of an advanced modelling methodology because a rail vehicle is a complex system which includes not only mechanical, but also electrical, hydraulic and other subsystems. In a real vehicle, all systems should ‘communicate’ between themselves. However, in the simulation world it is quite difficult to find a software product which can work in multidisciplinary areas. Therefore, it is necessary to have different software products for each discipline and to allow them to talk to each other. Some ideas on how this can be organised have been published by Körtum and Vaculín [1]. The simplified scheme for the multi-disciplinary simulation is shown in Figure 8.1. Moreover, not only communication needs to be achieved, but different software packages should also be synchronised in time in order to provide accurate results. There are few cases where time-independent parameters are in use. All these issues are included in the advanced simulation methodology which can be covered by the co-simulation process. Here is a reasonable question: What does co-simulation mean? Let us see what definitions are commonly used for co-simulation.
