Data Simulation Capabilities
TranSys Research Limited offers a significant capability to analyse the significance of observed behaviour and/or predict the dynamic motions of railway vehicles and components in response to wheel/rail excitation or application of other external forces or displacements. These efforts are supported through use of the A'GEM Rail Vehicle Dynamics Software Package which is built upon a generalized multibody system (MBS) dynamic simulation code developed by Dr. Ronald J. Anderson of the Queen's University department of Mechanical Engineering.
With the A'GEM package, a model of a rail vehicle is constructed which may then be used as the subject of time- and frequency-domain analyses to investigate the nature of its dynamic response in the modes of specific interest. The package includes programs to evaluate a vehicle's curving dynamics, stability, vertical dynamics and vertical ride quality as well as utility programs for processing wheel/rail geometries and creep coefficients. We have detailed knowledge of and experience using these simulation programs and have been involved in implementing selective enhancements when required. Moreover, we have recently developed in conjunction with the author of the A'GEM package, a new frequency-domain model for prediction of a vehicle's acceleration response and wheelset forces due to surface and crosslevel excitation.
We have other specific experience developing and using various special-purpose dynamic simulation programs and engineering analysis tools. These have included time-domain simulation programs to predict derailment dynamics, response and force development during collisions between rail vehicles and track obstructions and a program to examine head-on locomotive to locomotive collisions. The latter employed finite element analysis (FEA) techniques to develop a complex force-deflection characteristic representative of successive failure of locomotive structural components throughout the course of a collision.