Dynamic Performance Improvement For Low-Floor Light Rail Vehicles Using Semi-Active Dampers

With the increasing awareness of environmental protection, urban public transportation has developed continually. Thus the100%low-floor light rail vehicles gradually get more extensive research and application. Because the low floor vehicles share the city road with other vehicles, the objective conditions about the track quality and small curve radius limit the comfort of light rail vehicles. In order to solve the problem of poor ride quality of the vehicle, the application of the semi-active control to the dampers between carbodies is introduced to improve the ride performance.This paper firstly describes the research status of semi-active suspension all over the world and several commonly used semi-active control strategies. Based on SIMAPCK and SIMULINK, the100%low-floor light rail vehicle dynamic model is established.The effect of carbody dampers on the dynamic performance with different semi-active control methods is investigated.The influence of carbody longitudinal dampers parameters on the vehicle stability, ride comfort and curving behavior is analyzed.The results show that the damping values have different effects on the performance on straight track and curve track. Thus, the low-floor vehicles should be equipped with semi-active damper with two stage damping values. Larger damping should be used to ensure the stability and ride quality when on straight track and smaller damping to ensure the curving behaviour. The relative yaw angle between the carbody and bogie can be detected to judge whether the vehicle is running on a straight line or a curve.For the carbody lateral damper, the skyhook control and fuzzy control strategies are used to improve the vehicle ride quality.