Estimation of Applied Forces on Railway Vehicle Wheelsets from Measured Vehicle Responses

In this paper, a finite element (FE) model of a railway freight vehicle is proposed to be used in the identification of applied forces to the wheelsets. The proposed model is comprised of two, two-axle bogies of type H665 and a freight wagon. The model is updated in two stages. First, the bogie is updated by using modal data extracted from measurements on an actual bogie separated from wagon. Secondly, the whole structure of the vehicle is updated by modal data obtained from a test conducted on the vehicle in the laboratory. Since the proposed model is relatively large, it is reduced to some desirable points through the superelement analysis method, in order to reduce the cost of computation. The final reduced model is then used to identify the applied forces resulted from irregularities of track.