Operational Safety Assessment of a High-Speed Train Exposed to the Strong Gust Wind

The operational safety characteristics of trains exposed to a strong wind have caused great concern in recent years.In the present paper,the effect of the strong gust wind on a high-speed train is investigated.A typical gust wind model for any wind angle,named“Chinese hat gust wind model”,was first constructed,and an algorithm for computing the aerodynamic loads was elaborated accordingly.A vehicle system dynamic model was then set up in order to investigate the vehicle system dynamic characteristics.The assessment of the operational safety has been conducted by means of characteristic wind curves(CWC).As some of the parameters of the wind-train system were difficult to measure,we also investigated the impact of the uncertain system parameters on the CWC.Results indicate that,the descending order of the operational safety index of the vehicle for each wind angle is 90°-60°-120°-30°-150°,and the worst condition for the operational safety occurs when the wind angle reaches around 90°.According to our findings,the gust factor and aerodynamic side force coefficient have great impact on the critical wind speed.Thus,these two parameters require special attention when considering the operational safety of a railway vehicle subjected to strong gust wind.

Study on the operational safety of high-speed trains exposed to stochastic winds

The characteristic wind curve （CWC） was com- monly used in the previous work to evaluate the operational safety of the high-speed trains exposed to crosswinds. How- ever, the CWC only provide the dividing line between safety state and failure state of high-speed trains, which can not evaluate the risk of derailment of high-speed trains when ex- posed to natural winds. In the present paper, a more realistic approach taking into account the stochastic characteristics of natural winds is proposed, which can give a reasonable and effective assessment of the operational safety of high-speed trains under stochastic winds. In this approach, the longitudi- nal and lateral components of stochastic winds are simulated based on the Cooper theory and harmonic superposition. An algorithm is set up for calculating the unsteady aerody- namic forces （moments） of the high-speed trains exposed to stochastic winds. A multi-body dynamic model of the rail vehicle is established to compute the vehicle system dynamic response subjected to the unsteady aerodynamic forces （mo- ments） input. Then the statistical method is used to get the mean characteristic wind curve （MCWC） and spread range of the high-speed trains exposed to stochastic winds. It is found that the CWC provided by the previous analyticalmethod produces over-conservative limits. The methodol- ogy proposed in the present paper can provide more signif- icant reference for the safety operation of high-speed trains exposed to stochastic winds.