Research of the Reduced Mass of the Railway Track

Abstract

EN: In an overall view, a vehicle is described as a system of bodies interconnected by elastic and dissipative couplings. Bodies have a mass concentrated at a point, the movement of which describes their motion. Certain difficulties arise when introducing a railway track into such models. While interacting with the rolling stock, the track operates as an elastic body, and its mass is specified as reduced to the point of interaction. The purpose of this work is to provide a reasonable value of the reduced mass of the railway track depending on its parameters. The task is solved by applying a spatial model of dynamic deformations of the railway track on the basis of the elasticity theory. Such an approach makes it possible to determine which part of the railway track interacts with the wheel based on the propagation of deformations as elastic waves.