Semi Active Vibration Control Device for Secondary Suspension of a Railway Wagon to Improve Ride Comfort

The rail irregularities and wheel-rail interactions in a train running at high speeds may result in large-amplitude vibration in the train's car body and affect passengers by reducing ride comfort. The train suspension systems have a vital role in reducing the vibration and improving ride comfort to an acceptable level. The existing passive viscous dampers have limited scope of achieving this objective. In this paper Magnetorheological (MR) dampers as semi-active control devices for secondary suspension in a railway wagon are used for achieving better ride performance parameters. Compared the ride comfort parameters of the wagon with MR dampers against the conventional passive viscous dampers. The sprung mass acceleration, displacement and suspension travel are assessed for three different control strategies, skyhook, ground hook and hybrid. Matlab/Simulink software is used for simulation of the wagon suspension system.