ABSTRACT

There exist great numbers of different designs of rail vehicles, but the structure of such vehicles commonly has a set of standard modules, units and mechanisms which are, or can be, produced by different manufacturers and have different characteristics and behaviour depending on specific parameters chosen by the designers, but their physical nature is still the same. In this book, we provide a general description of the design of the common features of rail vehicles and show the methods used to simulate and verify them. In most cases, the latter is quite a complex task and not possible to do based only on the theoretical knowledge because the reactions to the variations in operational conditions of such a complex system and its component parts are nonlinear and uncertain. Therefore, knowledge and expertise obtained from experimental studies are essential to producing an optimal rail vehicle design. During the writing of this book, the authors generally used expertise in this field obtained at the Centre for Railway Engineering (CRE) at Central Queensland University. The centre is a rail industryfocussed research organisation established in 1994 at Central Queensland University’s Rockhampton campus. During its life, the CRE has performed many research projects for specific industrial partners and for the national rail industry more generally through the Cooperative Research Centre Program of the Commonwealth of Australia. Some results obtained from these latter projects, and especially simulation methodologies used in them, have been drawn upon as the basis of much of this book.