Research into the track/vehicle interaction processes for underground railways

The article deals with determination of dynamic forces in interaction between a rail vehicle and underground track for working out recommendations in terms of a longer service life of the permanent track without extra charges. The issue is of importance for enterprises under limited resources. The research was conducted with mathematical model methods for the vehicle/track dynamic system (the principles were developed earlier), as the experimental work in the underground tunnels was complicated by intensive train traffic during a day. A special feature of the research was consideration of a rail as a bar rested on discrete elastic-dissipative supports in a design diagram of the vehicle/track dynamic system. Thus, the authors established the effects of unequal elasticity of the track rail support on the value of vertical dynamic forces when a metro coach moves on the track. In particular, the dependencies of dynamic factors and amplitude ratios of vertical forces on speeds of metro coaches along the discrete elastic- dissipative track were obtained. An exceptional value of the research is consideration of both vertical and horizontal lateral forces on the vehicle/track interaction. It allowed the authors to define the value of vertical and horizontal lateral forces which occurred when metro coaches moved along straight and curved sections of the track according to the speed and curve radius.