Experimental investigation on stability and equivalent conicity of a rolling stock

The EN-14363 standard states the possibil-ity of verifying the rail vehicles stability by means of an ac-celerometric simplified method, based on kinematic mea-surements. In this work this method is applied to the stability veri-fication of a two-bogies vehicle for passenger transporta-tion. Tests have been carried out together with the railway track geometry and rail profile survey using a dedicated measurement system. For the monitored wheelsets, wheels profiles have been measured as well, in such a way it was possible to calcu-late the equivalent conicity using a combination of real profiles both of wheel and rail. The vehicle was tested on Tyrrhenian line, in the section Grosseto-Campiglia, in straight and large radius zones, with maximum speed of 176 km/h, as required by standard EN 14363. The complex measurement system and data post-pro-cessing allowed signals synchronization, obtained from dif-ferent acquisitions, and the comparison, for each point of the line, of the data acquired from accelerometers with the real equivalent conicity. It was hence possible to evaluate how it affects the vehicle stability.